pylibmc is a Python wrapper around the accompanying C Python extension _pylibmc, which is a wrapper around libmemcached from TangentOrg.
You have to install libmemcached separately, and have your compiler and linker find the include files and libraries.
With libmemcached installed and this package set up, the following basic usage example should work:
>>> import pylibmc
>>> mc = pylibmc.Client(["127.0.0.1:11211"])
>>> mc.set("foo", "Hello world!")
True
>>> mc.get("foo")
'Hello world!'
The API is pretty much python-memcached. Some parts of libmemcached aren't exposed yet. I think.
There's also support for some other features not present in other Python libraries, for example, the binary protocol:
>>> mc = pylibmc.Client(["127.0.0.1"], binary=True)
That's it, the binary protocol will be used for that instance.
libmemcached has ways of telling it how to behave. You'll have to refer to its documentation on what the different behaviors do.
To change behaviors, quite simply:
>>> mc.behaviors["hash"] = "fnv1a_32"
For a list of the defined behavior key names, see what the keys of a client is. For example:
>>> mc.behaviors.keys() # doctest: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
['hash', 'connect timeout', 'cache lookups', 'buffer requests',
'verify key', 'support cas', 'poll timeout', 'no block', 'tcp nodelay',
'distribution', 'sort hosts']
The hash
and distribution
keys are mapped by the Python module to constant integer values used by libmemcached. See pylibmc.hashers
and pylibmc.distributions
.
In multithreaded environments, accessing the same memcached client object is both unsafe and counter-productive in terms of performance. libmemcached's take on this is to introduce pooling on C level, which is correspondingly mapped to pooling on Python level in `pylibmc`:
>>> mc = pylibmc.Client(["127.0.0.1"])
>>> pool = pylibmc.ThreadMappedPool(mc)
>>> # (in a thread...)
>>> with pool.reserve() as mc:
... mc.set("hello", "world")
For more information on pooling, see my two long posts about it.
Why use pylibmc? Because it's fast.
See this (a bit old) speed comparison, or amix.dk's comparison.
#sendapatch
on chat.freenode.net
.
- Added a
get_stats
method, which behaves exactly like python-memcached's equivalent.- Gives the empty string for empty memcached values like python-memcached does.
- Added exceptions for most libmemcached return codes.
- Fixed an issue with
Client.behaviors.update
.
- Pooling helpers are now available. See
pooling.rst
in the distribution.- The binary protocol is now properly exposed, simply pass
binary=True
to the constructor and there you go.- Call signatures now match libmemcached 0.32, but should work with older versions. Remember to run the tests!
- Restructured some of the code, which should yield better performance (if not for that, it reads better.)
- Fixed some memory leaks.
- Integrated changes from amix.dk, which should make pylibmc work under Snow Leopard.
- Add support for the boolean datatype.
- Improved test-runner -- now tests
build/lib.*/_pylibmc.so
if available, and reports some version information.- Support for x86_64 should now work completely.
- Builds with Python 2.4, tests run fine, but not officially supported.
- Fixed critical bugs in behavior manipulation.
- Added compatibility with libmemcached 0.26, WRT error return codes.
- Added flush_all and disconnect_all methods.
- Now using the latest pickling protocol.
- Fixed lots of memory leaks, and added support for libmemcached 0.23.
- Also made the code tighter in terms of compiler pedantics.
- Renamed the C module to _pylibmc, and added lots of libmemcached constants to it, as well as implemented behaviors.