Utilities

The follow functions exist to provide additional high-level functionality.

auto()

Given an arbitrary file, this library can attempt to map its structure into a Python object synchronized back to that file. For example, a YAML file named sample.yml containing the following:

names:
  - Alice
  - Bob
numbers:
  - 1
  - 2

can be loaded into an object:

>>> from datafiles import auto
>>> sample = auto('sample.yml')
>>> sample.names
['Alice', 'Bob']

where modified attributes:

>>> sample.numbers.append(3)

are automatically reflected in the file:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

$ cat sample.yml

names:
  - Alice
  - Bob
numbers:
  - 1
  - 2
  - 3

Additional examples can be found in this Jupyter Notebook.