Yobs: Python dictionaries that you can easily save, restore and edit as files

A Yob (yaml file object) is a python dictionary that you can easily save, restore and edit as a file.

Yobs also come with an optional simple but powerful file oriented database.

Yobs can be arbitrarily complex and may leverage the serialization/deserialization capabilities of PyYAML if needed.

While yobs are reasonably performant they are individual yaml files at heart.

Specialize yobs to serve up JSON or models with any behavior based upon their data that you fancy.

Not tested on Windows.

Use a lonely yob for configuration

In [1]: from yob import Yob

In [2]: y = Yob('/tmp/yobs/A')

# Use a context manager to automatically save any changes
In [3]: with y:
   ...:     y['base_path'] = '/tmp/yobs'
   ...: 

In [4]: y
Out[4]: {'base_path': '/tmp/yobs'}

# ...or explicitly save after changes
In [5]: y['max'] = 99

In [6]: y.save()

In [7]: y
Out[7]: {'base_path': '/tmp/yobs', 'max': 99}

# Use it like any other dictionary
In [8]: y['max']
Out [8]: 99

You can also edit the file directly - it is just yaml.

Or put convivial yobs together as a file based database

The database is created from a root folder. Sub folders are generated from the unique identifier used for each yob in the database to make listing and filtering easy.

In [1]: animal_init = {'age': 0}

In [2]: cats_and_dogs = {'dog': ['fido', 'rover', 'spud'],
   ...:                  'cat': ['puss', 'ginger', 'oscar']}  # using <type>/<name> as uids
   
In [3]: from yob_database import YobDatabase

In [4]: !mkdir /tmp/test_yobs

In [5]: db = YobDatabase('/tmp/test_yobs')

In [6]: for animal_type, animal_names in cats_and_dogs.items():
   ...:     for name in animal_names:
   ...:         uid = f"{animal_type}/{name}"
   ...:         data = {**animal_init, 'type': animal_type, 'name': name}
   ...:         db.create(uid, data)
   ...:
In [7]: with db.get('dog/fido') as fido:
   ...:     fido['age'] = 10
   ...: 

In [8]: db.list()
Out[8]: 
[{'age': 0, 'name': 'oscar', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'puss', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'ginger', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'rover', 'type': 'dog'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'spud', 'type': 'dog'},
 {'age': 10, 'name': 'fido', 'type': 'dog'}]

In [9]: db.filter(lambda y: y['name'].endswith('r'))
Out[9]: 
[{'age': 0, 'name': 'oscar', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'ginger', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'rover', 'type': 'dog'}]

In [10]: db.filter(lambda y: y['name'].endswith('r'), 'cat')
Out[10]: 
[{'age': 0, 'name': 'oscar', 'type': 'cat'},
 {'age': 0, 'name': 'ginger', 'type': 'cat'}]

In [11]: db.filter(lambda y: y['age'] > 5)
Out[11]: [{'age': 10, 'name': 'fido', 'type': 'dog'}]

The file structure is simple and easy to work with directly too:

(yob) test_yobs $ tree
.
├── cat
│   ├── ginger
│   ├── oscar
│   └── puss
└── dog
    ├── fido
    ├── rover
    └── spud

2 directories, 6 files
(yob) test_yobs $ cat cat/ginger
age: 0
name: ginger
type: cat