Data Persistence

The modules described in this chapter support storing Python data in a persistent form on disk. The pickle and marshal modules can turn many Python data types into a stream of bytes and then recreate the objects from the bytes. The various DBM-related modules support a family of hash-based file formats that store a mapping of strings to other strings.

The list of modules described in this chapter is:

• pickle — Python object serialization
  • Relationship to other Python modules
    • Comparison with marshal
    • Comparison with json
  • Data stream format
  • Module Interface
    • HIGHEST_PROTOCOL
    • DEFAULT_PROTOCOL
    • dump()
    • dumps()
    • load()
    • loads()
    • PickleError
    • PicklingError
    • UnpicklingError
    • Pickler
      • Pickler.dump()
      • Pickler.persistent_id()
      • Pickler.dispatch_table
      • Pickler.reducer_override()
      • Pickler.fast
    • Unpickler
      • Unpickler.load()
      • Unpickler.persistent_load()
      • Unpickler.find_class()
    • PickleBuffer
      • PickleBuffer.raw()
      • PickleBuffer.release()
  • What can be pickled and unpickled?
  • Pickling Class Instances
    • object.__getnewargs_ex__()
    • object.__getnewargs__()
    • object.__getstate__()
    • object.__setstate__()
    • object.__reduce__()
    • object.__reduce_ex__()
    • Persistence of External Objects
    • Dispatch Tables
    • Handling Stateful Objects
  • Custom Reduction for Types, Functions, and Other Objects
  • Out-of-band Buffers
    • Provider API
    • Consumer API
    • Example
  • Restricting Globals
  • Performance
  • Examples
• copyreg — Register pickle support functions
  • constructor()
  • pickle()
  • Example
• shelve — Python object persistence
  • open()
  • Shelf.sync()
  • Shelf.close()
  • Restrictions
    • Shelf
    • BsdDbShelf
    • DbfilenameShelf
  • Example
• marshal — Internal Python object serialization
  • dump()
  • load()
  • dumps()
  • loads()
  • version
• dbm — Interfaces to Unix “databases”
  • error
  • whichdb()
  • open()
  • dbm.gnu — GNU’s reinterpretation of dbm
    • error
    • open()
    • gdbm.firstkey()
    • gdbm.nextkey()
    • gdbm.reorganize()
    • gdbm.sync()
    • gdbm.close()
  • dbm.ndbm — Interface based on ndbm
    • error
    • library
    • open()
    • ndbm.close()
  • dbm.dumb — Portable DBM implementation
    • error
    • open()
    • dumbdbm.sync()
    • dumbdbm.close()
• sqlite3 — DB-API 2.0 interface for SQLite databases
  • Tutorial
  • Reference
    • Module functions
      • connect()
      • complete_statement()
      • enable_callback_tracebacks()
      • register_adapter()
      • register_converter()
    • Module constants
      • PARSE_COLNAMES
      • PARSE_DECLTYPES
      • SQLITE_OK
      • SQLITE_DENY
      • SQLITE_IGNORE
      • apilevel
      • paramstyle
      • sqlite_version
      • sqlite_version_info
      • threadsafety
      • version
      • version_info
    • Connection objects
      • Connection
        • Connection.cursor()
        • Connection.commit()
        • Connection.rollback()
        • Connection.close()
        • Connection.execute()
        • Connection.executemany()
        • Connection.executescript()
        • Connection.create_function()
        • Connection.create_aggregate()
        • Connection.create_collation()
        • Connection.interrupt()
        • Connection.set_authorizer()
        • Connection.set_progress_handler()
        • Connection.set_trace_callback()
        • Connection.enable_load_extension()
        • Connection.load_extension()
        • Connection.iterdump()
        • Connection.backup()
        • Connection.in_transaction
        • Connection.isolation_level
        • Connection.row_factory
        • Connection.text_factory
        • Connection.total_changes
    • Cursor objects
      • Cursor
        • Cursor.execute()
        • Cursor.executemany()
        • Cursor.executescript()
        • Cursor.fetchone()
        • Cursor.fetchmany()
        • Cursor.fetchall()
        • Cursor.close()
        • Cursor.setinputsizes()
        • Cursor.setoutputsize()
        • Cursor.arraysize
        • Cursor.connection
        • Cursor.description
        • Cursor.lastrowid
        • Cursor.rowcount
        • Cursor.row_factory
    • Row objects
      • Row
        • Row.keys()
    • PrepareProtocol objects
      • PrepareProtocol
    • Exceptions
      • Warning
      • Error
      • InterfaceError
      • DatabaseError
      • DataError
      • OperationalError
      • IntegrityError
      • InternalError
      • ProgrammingError
      • NotSupportedError
    • SQLite and Python types
    • Default adapters and converters
  • How-to guides
    • How to use placeholders to bind values in SQL queries
    • How to adapt custom Python types to SQLite values
      • How to write adaptable objects
      • How to register adapter callables
    • How to convert SQLite values to custom Python types
    • Adapter and converter recipes
    • How to use connection shortcut methods
    • How to use the connection context manager
    • How to work with SQLite URIs
    • How to create and use row factories
  • Explanation
    • Transaction control