mmap
Memory-mapped file objects behave like both bytearray and like file objects <file object>. You can use mmap objects in most places where bytearray are expected; for example, you can use the re module to search through a memory-mapped file. You can also change a single byte by doing obj[index] = 97, or change a subsequence by assigning to a slice: obj[i1:i2] = b'...'. You can also read and write data starting at the current file position, and seek through the file to different positions.
A memory-mapped file is created by the ~mmap.mmap constructor, which is different on Unix and on Windows. In either case you must provide a file descriptor for a file opened for update. If you wish to map an existing Python file object, use its ~io.IOBase.fileno method to obtain the correct value for the fileno parameter. Otherwise, you can open the file using the os.open function, which returns a file descriptor directly (the file still needs to be closed when done).
Note
If you want to create a memory-mapping for a writable, buffered file, you should ~io.IOBase.flush the file first. This is necessary to ensure that local modifications to the buffers are actually available to the mapping.
For both the Unix and Windows versions of the constructor, access may be specified as an optional keyword parameter. access accepts one of four values: ACCESS_READ, ACCESS_WRITE, or ACCESS_COPY to specify read-only, write-through or copy-on-write memory respectively, or ACCESS_DEFAULT to defer to prot. access can be used on both Unix and Windows. If access is not specified, Windows mmap returns a write-through mapping. The initial memory values for all three access types are taken from the specified file. Assignment to an ACCESS_READ memory map raises a TypeError exception. Assignment to an ACCESS_WRITE memory map affects both memory and the underlying file. Assignment to an ACCESS_COPY memory map affects memory but does not update the underlying file.
3.7 Added ACCESS_DEFAULT constant.
To map anonymous memory, -1 should be passed as the fileno along with the length.
(Windows version) Maps length bytes from the file specified by the file handle fileno, and creates a mmap object. If length is larger than the current size of the file, the file is extended to contain length bytes. If length is 0, the maximum length of the map is the current size of the file, except that if the file is empty Windows raises an exception (you cannot create an empty mapping on Windows).
tagname, if specified and not None, is a string giving a tag name for the mapping. Windows allows you to have many different mappings against the same file. If you specify the name of an existing tag, that tag is opened, otherwise a new tag of this name is created. If this parameter is omitted or None, the mapping is created without a name. Avoiding the use of the tagname parameter will assist in keeping your code portable between Unix and Windows.
offset may be specified as a non-negative integer offset. mmap references will be relative to the offset from the beginning of the file. offset defaults to 0. offset must be a multiple of the ALLOCATIONGRANULARITY.
mmap.__new__ fileno,length,access,offset mmap.mmap
(Unix version) Maps length bytes from the file specified by the file descriptor fileno, and returns a mmap object. If length is 0, the maximum length of the map will be the current size of the file when ~mmap.mmap is called.
flags specifies the nature of the mapping. MAP_PRIVATE creates a private copy-on-write mapping, so changes to the contents of the mmap object will be private to this process, and MAP_SHARED creates a mapping that's shared with all other processes mapping the same areas of the file. The default value is MAP_SHARED. Some systems have additional possible flags with the full list specified in MAP_* constants <map-constants>.
prot, if specified, gives the desired memory protection; the two most useful values are PROT_READ and PROT_WRITE, to specify that the pages may be read or written. prot defaults to PROT_READ \| PROT_WRITE.
access may be specified in lieu of flags and prot as an optional keyword parameter. It is an error to specify both flags, prot and access. See the description of access above for information on how to use this parameter.
offset may be specified as a non-negative integer offset. mmap references will be relative to the offset from the beginning of the file. offset defaults to 0. offset must be a multiple of ALLOCATIONGRANULARITY which is equal to PAGESIZE on Unix systems.
If trackfd is False, the file descriptor specified by fileno will not be duplicated, and the resulting !mmap object will not be associated with the map's underlying file. This means that the ~mmap.mmap.size and ~mmap.mmap.resize methods will fail. This mode is useful to limit the number of open file descriptors.
To ensure validity of the created memory mapping the file specified by the descriptor fileno is internally automatically synchronized with the physical backing store on macOS.
3.13 The trackfd parameter was added.
This example shows a simple way of using ~mmap.mmap:
import mmap
# write a simple example file
with open("hello.txt", "wb") as f:
f.write(b"Hello Python!\n")
with open("hello.txt", "r+b") as f:
# memory-map the file, size 0 means whole file
mm = mmap.mmap(f.fileno(), 0)
# read content via standard file methods
print(mm.readline()) # prints b"Hello Python!\n"
# read content via slice notation
print(mm[:5]) # prints b"Hello"
# update content using slice notation;
# note that new content must have same size
mm[6:] = b" world!\n"
# ... and read again using standard file methods
mm.seek(0)
print(mm.readline()) # prints b"Hello world!\n"
# close the map
mm.close()~mmap.mmap can also be used as a context manager in a with statement:
import mmap
with mmap.mmap(-1, 13) as mm:
mm.write(b"Hello world!")3.2 Context manager support.
The next example demonstrates how to create an anonymous map and exchange data between the parent and child processes:
import mmap
import os
mm = mmap.mmap(-1, 13)
mm.write(b"Hello world!")
pid = os.fork()
if pid == 0: # In a child process
mm.seek(0)
print(mm.readline())
mm.close()mmap.__new__ fileno,length,access,offset mmap.mmap
Memory-mapped file objects support the following methods:
close()
Closes the mmap. Subsequent calls to other methods of the object will result in a ValueError exception being raised. This will not close the open file.
closed
True if the file is closed.
3.2
find(sub[, start[, end]])
Returns the lowest index in the object where the subsequence sub is found, such that sub is contained in the range [start, end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Returns -1 on failure.
3.5 Writable bytes-like object is now accepted.
flush([offset[, size]])
Flushes changes made to the in-memory copy of a file back to disk. Without use of this call there is no guarantee that changes are written back before the object is destroyed. If offset and size are specified, only changes to the given range of bytes will be flushed to disk; otherwise, the whole extent of the mapping is flushed. offset must be a multiple of the PAGESIZE or ALLOCATIONGRANULARITY.
None is returned to indicate success. An exception is raised when the call failed.
3.8 Previously, a nonzero value was returned on success; zero was returned on error under Windows. A zero value was returned on success; an exception was raised on error under Unix.
madvise(option[, start[, length]])
Send advice option to the kernel about the memory region beginning at start and extending length bytes. option must be one of the MADV_* constants <madvise-constants> available on the system. If start and length are omitted, the entire mapping is spanned. On some systems (including Linux), start must be a multiple of the PAGESIZE.
Availability: Systems with the madvise() system call.
3.8
move(dest, src, count)
Copy the count bytes starting at offset src to the destination index dest. If the mmap was created with ACCESS_READ, then calls to move will raise a TypeError exception.
read([n])
Return a bytes containing up to n bytes starting from the current file position. If the argument is omitted, None or negative, return all bytes from the current file position to the end of the mapping. The file position is updated to point after the bytes that were returned.
3.3 Argument can be omitted or None.
read_byte()
Returns a byte at the current file position as an integer, and advances the file position by 1.
readline()
Returns a single line, starting at the current file position and up to the next newline. The file position is updated to point after the bytes that were returned.
resize(newsize)
Resizes the map and the underlying file, if any.
Resizing a map created with access of ACCESS_READ or ACCESS_COPY, will raise a TypeError exception. Resizing a map created with with trackfd set to False, will raise a ValueError exception.
On Windows: Resizing the map will raise an OSError if there are other maps against the same named file. Resizing an anonymous map (ie against the pagefile) will silently create a new map with the original data copied over up to the length of the new size.
3.11 Correctly fails if attempting to resize when another map is held Allows resize against an anonymous map on Windows
rfind(sub[, start[, end]])
Returns the highest index in the object where the subsequence sub is found, such that sub is contained in the range [start, end]. Optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in slice notation. Returns -1 on failure.
3.5 Writable bytes-like object is now accepted.
seek(pos[, whence])
Set the file's current position. whence argument is optional and defaults to os.SEEK_SET or 0 (absolute file positioning); other values are os.SEEK_CUR or 1 (seek relative to the current position) and os.SEEK_END or 2 (seek relative to the file's end).
3.13 Return the new absolute position instead of None.
seekable()
Return whether the file supports seeking, and the return value is always True.
3.13
size()
Return the length of the file, which can be larger than the size of the memory-mapped area.
tell()
Returns the current position of the file pointer.
write(bytes)
Write the bytes in bytes into memory at the current position of the file pointer and return the number of bytes written (never less than len(bytes), since if the write fails, a ValueError will be raised). The file position is updated to point after the bytes that were written. If the mmap was created with ACCESS_READ, then writing to it will raise a TypeError exception.
3.5 Writable bytes-like object is now accepted.
3.6 The number of bytes written is now returned.
write_byte(byte)
Write the integer byte into memory at the current position of the file pointer; the file position is advanced by 1. If the mmap was created with ACCESS_READ, then writing to it will raise a TypeError exception.
MADV* Constants
MADV_NORMAL MADV_RANDOM MADV_SEQUENTIAL MADV_WILLNEED MADV_DONTNEED MADV_REMOVE MADV_DONTFORK MADV_DOFORK MADV_HWPOISON MADV_MERGEABLE MADV_UNMERGEABLE MADV_SOFT_OFFLINE MADV_HUGEPAGE MADV_NOHUGEPAGE MADV_DONTDUMP MADV_DODUMP MADV_FREE MADV_NOSYNC MADV_AUTOSYNC MADV_NOCORE MADV_CORE MADV_PROTECT MADV_FREE_REUSABLE MADV_FREE_REUSE
These options can be passed to mmap.madvise. Not every option will be present on every system.
Availability: Systems with the madvise() system call.
3.8
MAP* Constants
MAP_SHARED MAP_PRIVATE MAP_32BIT MAP_ALIGNED_SUPER MAP_ANON MAP_ANONYMOUS MAP_CONCEAL MAP_DENYWRITE MAP_EXECUTABLE MAP_HASSEMAPHORE MAP_JIT MAP_NOCACHE MAP_NOEXTEND MAP_NORESERVE MAP_POPULATE MAP_RESILIENT_CODESIGN MAP_RESILIENT_MEDIA MAP_STACK MAP_TPRO MAP_TRANSLATED_ALLOW_EXECUTE MAP_UNIX03
These are the various flags that can be passed to mmap.mmap. MAP_ALIGNED_SUPER is only available at FreeBSD and MAP_CONCEAL is only available at OpenBSD. Note that some options might not be present on some systems.
3.10 Added MAP_POPULATE constant.
3.11 Added MAP_STACK constant.
3.12 Added MAP_ALIGNED_SUPER and MAP_CONCEAL constants.
3.13 Added MAP_32BIT, MAP_HASSEMAPHORE, MAP_JIT, MAP_NOCACHE, MAP_NOEXTEND, MAP_NORESERVE, MAP_RESILIENT_CODESIGN, MAP_RESILIENT_MEDIA, MAP_TPRO, MAP_TRANSLATED_ALLOW_EXECUTE, and MAP_UNIX03 constants.