Welcome to TinyDB!

Welcome to TinyDB, your tiny, document oriented database optimized for your happiness :)

>>> from tinydb import TinyDB, Query
>>> db = TinyDB('path/to/db.json')
>>> User = Query()
>>> db.insert({'name': 'John', 'age': 22})
>>> db.search(User.name == 'John')
[{'name': 'John', 'age': 22}]

User’s Guide

Introduction

Great that you’ve taken time to check out the TinyDB docs! Before we begin looking at TinyDB itself, let’s take some time to see whether you should use TinyDB.

Why Use TinyDB?

  • tiny: The current source code has 1800 lines of code (with about 40% documentation) and 1600 lines tests.
  • document oriented: Like MongoDB, you can store any document (represented as dict) in TinyDB.
  • optimized for your happiness: TinyDB is designed to be simple and fun to use by providing a simple and clean API.
  • written in pure Python: TinyDB neither needs an external server (as e.g. PyMongo) nor any dependencies from PyPI.
  • works on Python 3.5+ and PyPy: TinyDB works on all modern versions of Python and PyPy.
  • powerfully extensible: You can easily extend TinyDB by writing new storages or modify the behaviour of storages with Middlewares.
  • 100% test coverage: No explanation needed.

In short: If you need a simple database with a clean API that just works without lots of configuration, TinyDB might be the right choice for you.

Why Not Use TinyDB?

  • You need advanced features like:
    • access from multiple processes or threads,
    • creating indexes for tables,
    • an HTTP server,
    • managing relationships between tables or similar,
    • ACID guarantees.
  • You are really concerned about performance and need a high speed database.

To put it plainly: If you need advanced features or high performance, TinyDB is the wrong database for you – consider using databases like SQLite, Buzhug, CodernityDB or MongoDB.

Getting Started

Installing TinyDB

To install TinyDB from PyPI, run:

$ pip install tinydb

You can also grab the latest development version from GitHub. After downloading and unpacking it, you can install it using:

$ pip install .

Basic Usage

Let’s cover the basics before going more into detail. We’ll start by setting up a TinyDB database:

>>> from tinydb import TinyDB, Query
>>> db = TinyDB('db.json')

You now have a TinyDB database that stores its data in db.json. What about inserting some data? TinyDB expects the data to be Python dicts:

>>> db.insert({'type': 'apple', 'count': 7})
>>> db.insert({'type': 'peach', 'count': 3})

Note

The insert method returns the inserted document’s ID. Read more about it here: Using Document IDs.

Now you can get all documents stored in the database by running:

>>> db.all()
[{'count': 7, 'type': 'apple'}, {'count': 3, 'type': 'peach'}]

You can also iter over stored documents:

>>> for item in db:
>>>     print(item)
{'count': 7, 'type': 'apple'}
{'count': 3, 'type': 'peach'}

Of course you’ll also want to search for specific documents. Let’s try:

>>> Fruit = Query()
>>> db.search(Fruit.type == 'peach')
[{'count': 3, 'type': 'peach'}]
>>> db.search(Fruit.count > 5)
[{'count': 7, 'type': 'apple'}]

Next we’ll update the count field of the apples:

>>> db.update({'count': 10}, Fruit.type == 'apple')
>>> db.all()
[{'count': 10, 'type': 'apple'}, {'count': 3, 'type': 'peach'}]

In the same manner you can also remove documents:

>>> db.remove(Fruit.count < 5)
>>> db.all()
[{'count': 10, 'type': 'apple'}]

And of course you can throw away all data to start with an empty database:

>>> db.truncate()
>>> db.all()
[]
Recap

Before we dive deeper, let’s recapitulate the basics:

Inserting
db.insert(...) Insert a document
Getting data
db.all() Get all documents
iter(db) Iter over all documents
db.search(query) Get a list of documents matching the query
Updating
db.update(fields, query) Update all documents matching the query to contain fields
Removing
db.remove(query) Remove all documents matching the query
db.truncate() Remove all documents
Querying
Query() Create a new query object
Query().field == 2 Match any document that has a key field with value == 2 (also possible: !=, >, >=, <, <=)

Advanced Usage

Remarks on Storage

Before we dive deeper into the usage of TinyDB, we should stop for a moment and discuss how TinyDB stores data.

To convert your data to a format that is writable to disk TinyDB uses the Python JSON module by default. It’s great when only simple data types are involved but it cannot handle more complex data types like custom classes. On Python 2 it also converts strings to Unicode strings upon reading (described here).

If that causes problems, you can write your own storage, that uses a more powerful (but also slower) library like pickle or PyYAML.

Hint

Opening multiple TinyDB instances on the same data (e.g. with the JSONStorage) may result in unexpected behavior due to query caching. See query_caching on how to disable the query cache.

Queries

With that out of the way, let’s start with TinyDB’s rich set of queries. There are two main ways to construct queries. The first one resembles the syntax of popular ORM tools:

>>> from tinydb import Query
>>> User = Query()
>>> db.search(User.name == 'John')

As you can see, we first create a new Query object and then use it to specify which fields to check. Searching for nested fields is just as easy:

>>> db.search(User.birthday.year == 1990)

Not all fields can be accessed this way if the field name is not a valid Python identifier. In this case, you can switch to array indexing notation:

>>> # This would be invalid Python syntax:
>>> db.search(User.country-code == 'foo')
>>> # Use this instead:
>>> db.search(User['country-code'] == 'foo')

The second, traditional way of constructing queries is as follows:

>>> from tinydb import where
>>> db.search(where('field') == 'value')

Using where('field') is a shorthand for the following code:

>>> db.search(Query()['field'] == 'value')

Accessing nested fields with this syntax can be achieved like this:

>>> db.search(where('birthday').year == 1900)
>>> db.search(where('birthday')['year'] == 1900)
Advanced queries

In the Getting Started you’ve learned about the basic comparisons (==, <, >, …). In addition to these TinyDB supports the following queries:

>>> # Existence of a field:
>>> db.search(User.name.exists())

>>> # Regex:
>>> # Full item has to match the regex:
>>> db.search(User.name.matches('[aZ]*'))
>>> # Case insensitive search for 'John':
>>> import re
>>> db.search(User.name.matches('John', flags=re.IGNORECASE))
>>> # Any part of the item has to match the regex:
>>> db.search(User.name.search('b+'))

>>> # Custom test:
>>> test_func = lambda s: s == 'John'
>>> db.search(User.name.test(test_func))

>>> # Custom test with parameters:
>>> def test_func(val, m, n):
>>>     return m <= val <= n
>>> db.search(User.age.test(test_func, 0, 21))
>>> db.search(User.age.test(test_func, 21, 99))

Another case is if you have a dict where you want to find all documents that match this dict. We call this searching for a fragment:

>>> db.search(Query().fragment({'foo': True, 'bar': False}))
[{'foo': True, 'bar': False, 'foobar: 'yes!'}]

You also can search for documents where a specific field matches the fragment:

>>> db.search(Query().field.fragment({'foo': True, 'bar': False}))
[{'field': {'foo': True, 'bar': False, 'foobar: 'yes!'}]

When a field contains a list, you also can use the any and all methods. There are two ways to use them: with lists of values and with nested queries. Let’s start with the first one. Assuming we have a user object with a groups list like this:

>>> db.insert({'name': 'user1', 'groups': ['user']})
>>> db.insert({'name': 'user2', 'groups': ['admin', 'user']})
>>> db.insert({'name': 'user3', 'groups': ['sudo', 'user']})

Now we can use the following queries:

>>> # User's groups include at least one value from ['admin', 'sudo']
>>> db.search(User.groups.any(['admin', 'sudo']))
[{'name': 'user2', 'groups': ['admin', 'user']},
 {'name': 'user3', 'groups': ['sudo', 'user']}]
>>>
>>> # User's groups include all values from ['admin', 'user']
>>> db.search(User.groups.all(['admin', 'user']))
[{'name': 'user2', 'groups': ['admin', 'user']}]

In some cases you may want to have more complex any/all queries. This is where nested queries come in as helpful. Let’s set up a table like this:

>>> Group = Query()
>>> Permission = Query()
>>> groups = db.table('groups')
>>> groups.insert({
        'name': 'user',
        'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}]})
>>> groups.insert({
        'name': 'sudo',
        'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}, {'type': 'sudo'}]})
>>> groups.insert({
        'name': 'admin',
        'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}, {'type': 'write'}, {'type': 'sudo'}]})

Now let’s search this table using nested any/all queries:

>>> # Group has a permission with type 'read'
>>> groups.search(Group.permissions.any(Permission.type == 'read'))
[{'name': 'user', 'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}]},
 {'name': 'sudo', 'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}, {'type': 'sudo'}]},
 {'name': 'admin', 'permissions':
        [{'type': 'read'}, {'type': 'write'}, {'type': 'sudo'}]}]
>>> # Group has ONLY permission 'read'
>>> groups.search(Group.permissions.all(Permission.type == 'read'))
[{'name': 'user', 'permissions': [{'type': 'read'}]}]

As you can see, any tests if there is at least one document matching the query while all ensures all documents match the query.

The opposite operation, checking if a single item is contained in a list, is also possible using one_of:

>>> db.search(User.name.one_of(['jane', 'john']))
Query modifiers

TinyDB also allows you to use logical operations to modify and combine queries:

>>> # Negate a query:
>>> db.search(~ (User.name == 'John'))

>>> # Logical AND:
>>> db.search((User.name == 'John') & (User.age <= 30))

>>> # Logical OR:
>>> db.search((User.name == 'John') | (User.name == 'Bob'))

Note

When using & or |, make sure you wrap the conditions on both sides with parentheses or Python will mess up the comparison.

Also, when using negation (~) you’ll have to wrap the query you want to negate in parentheses.

The reason for these requirements is that Python’s binary operators that are used for query modifiers have a higher operator precedence than comparison operators. Simply put, ~ User.name == 'John' is parsed by Python as (~User.name) == 'John' instead of ~(User.name == 'John'). See also the Python docs on operator precedence for details.

Recap

Let’s review the query operations we’ve learned:

Queries
Query().field.exists() Match any document where a field called field exists
Query().field.matches(regex) Match any document with the whole field matching the regular expression
Query().field.search(regex) Match any document with a substring of the field matching the regular expression
Query().field.test(func, *args) Matches any document for which the function returns True
Query().field.all(query | list) If given a query, matches all documents where all documents in the list field match the query. If given a list, matches all documents where all documents in the list field are a member of the given list
Query().field.any(query | list) If given a query, matches all documents where at least one document in the list field match the query. If given a list, matches all documents where at least one documents in the list field are a member of the given list
Query().field.one_of(list) Match if the field is contained in the list
Logical operations on queries
~ (query) Match documents that don’t match the query
(query1) & (query2) Match documents that match both queries
(query1) | (query2) Match documents that match at least one of the queries

Handling Data

Next, let’s look at some more ways to insert, update and retrieve data from your database.

Inserting data

As already described you can insert a document using db.insert(...). In case you want to insert multiple documents, you can use db.insert_multiple(...):

>>> db.insert_multiple([
        {'name': 'John', 'age': 22},
        {'name': 'John', 'age': 37}])
>>> db.insert_multiple({'int': 1, 'value': i} for i in range(2))

Also in some cases it may be useful to specify the document ID yourself when inserting data. You can do that by using the Document class:

>>> db.insert(Document({'name': 'John', 'age': 22}, doc_id=12))
12
Updating data

Sometimes you want to update all documents in your database. In this case, you can leave out the query argument:

>>> db.update({'foo': 'bar'})

When passing a dict to db.update(fields, query), it only allows you to update a document by adding or overwriting its values. But sometimes you may need to e.g. remove one field or increment its value. In that case you can pass a function instead of fields:

>>> from tinydb.operations import delete
>>> db.update(delete('key1'), User.name == 'John')

This will remove the key key1 from all matching documents. TinyDB comes with these operations:

  • delete(key): delete a key from the document
  • increment(key): increment the value of a key
  • decrement(key): decrement the value of a key
  • add(key, value): add value to the value of a key (also works for strings)
  • subtract(key, value): subtract value from the value of a key
  • set(key, value): set key to value

Of course you also can write your own operations:

>>> def your_operation(your_arguments):
...     def transform(doc):
...         # do something with the document
...         # ...
...     return transform
...
>>> db.update(your_operation(arguments), query)

In order to perform multiple update operations at once, you can use the update_multiple method like this:

>>> db.update_multiple([
...     ({'int': 2}, where('char') == 'a'),
...     ({'int': 4}, where('char') == 'b'),
... ])

You also can use mix normal updates with update operations:

>>> db.update_multiple([
...     ({'int': 2}, where('char') == 'a'),
...     ({delete('int'), where('char') == 'b'),
... ])

Data access and modification

Upserting data

In some cases you’ll need a mix of both update and insert: upsert. This operation is provided a document and a query. If it finds any documents matching the query, they will be updated with the data from the provided document. On the other hand, if no matching document is found, it inserts the provided document into the table:

>>> db.upsert({'name': 'John', 'logged-in': True}, User.name == 'John')

This will update all users with the name John to have logged-in set to True. If no matching user is found, a new document is inserted with both the name set and the logged-in flag.

Retrieving data

There are several ways to retrieve data from your database. For instance you can get the number of stored documents:

>>> len(db)
3

Hint

This will return the number of documents in the default table (see the notes on the default table).

Then of course you can use db.search(...) as described in the Getting Started section. But sometimes you want to get only one matching document. Instead of using

>>> try:
...     result = db.search(User.name == 'John')[0]
... except IndexError:
...     pass

you can use db.get(...):

>>> db.get(User.name == 'John')
{'name': 'John', 'age': 22}
>>> db.get(User.name == 'Bobby')
None

Caution

If multiple documents match the query, probably a random one of them will be returned!

Often you don’t want to search for documents but only know whether they are stored in the database. In this case db.contains(...) is your friend:

>>> db.contains(User.name == 'John')

In a similar manner you can look up the number of documents matching a query:

>>> db.count(User.name == 'John')
2
Recap

Let’s summarize the ways to handle data:

Inserting data
db.insert_multiple(...) Insert multiple documents
Updating data
db.update(operation, ...) Update all matching documents with a special operation
Retrieving data
len(db) Get the number of documents in the database
db.get(query) Get one document matching the query
db.contains(query) Check if the database contains a matching document
db.count(query) Get the number of matching documents

Note

This was a new feature in v3.6.0

Using Document IDs

Internally TinyDB associates an ID with every document you insert. It’s returned after inserting a document:

>>> db.insert({'name': 'John', 'age': 22})
3
>>> db.insert_multiple([{...}, {...}, {...}])
[4, 5, 6]

In addition you can get the ID of already inserted documents using document.doc_id. This works both with get and all:

>>> el = db.get(User.name == 'John')
>>> el.doc_id
3
>>> el = db.all()[0]
>>> el.doc_id
1
>>> el = db.all()[-1]
>>> el.doc_id
12

Different TinyDB methods also work with IDs, namely: update, remove, contains and get. The first two also return a list of affected IDs.

>>> db.update({'value': 2}, doc_ids=[1, 2])
>>> db.contains(doc_id=1)
True
>>> db.remove(doc_ids=[1, 2])
>>> db.get(doc_id=3)
{...}

Using doc_id instead of Query() again is slightly faster in operation.

Recap

Let’s sum up the way TinyDB supports working with IDs:

Getting a document’s ID
db.insert(...) Returns the inserted document’s ID
db.insert_multiple(...) Returns the inserted documents’ ID
document.doc_id Get the ID of a document fetched from the db
Working with IDs
db.get(doc_id=...) Get the document with the given ID
db.contains(doc_id=...) Check if the db contains a document with the given IDs
db.update({...}, doc_ids=[...]) Update all documents with the given IDs
db.remove(doc_ids=[...]) Remove all documents with the given IDs

Tables

TinyDB supports working with multiple tables. They behave just the same as the TinyDB class. To create and use a table, use db.table(name).

>>> table = db.table('table_name')
>>> table.insert({'value': True})
>>> table.all()
[{'value': True}]
>>> for row in table:
>>>     print(row)
{'value': True}

To remove a table from a database, use:

>>> db.drop_table('table_name')

If on the other hand you want to remove all tables, use the counterpart:

>>> db.drop_tables()

Finally, you can get a list with the names of all tables in your database:

>>> db.tables()
{'_default', 'table_name'}
Default Table

TinyDB uses a table named _default as the default table. All operations on the database object (like db.insert(...)) operate on this table. The name of this table can be modified by either passing default_table to the TinyDB constructor or by setting the DEFAULT_TABLE class variable to modify the default table name for all instances:

>>> #1: for a single instance only
>>> TinyDB(storage=SomeStorage, default_table='my-default')
>>> #2: for all instances
>>> TinyDB.DEFAULT_TABLE = 'my-default'

You also can modify the keyword arguments that are passed to the default table by setting TinyDB.DEFAULT_TABLE_KWARGS. For example, you can disable the query cache for the default table by setting like this:

>>> TinyDB.DEFAULT_TABLE_KWARGS = {'cache_size': 0}
Query Caching

TinyDB caches query result for performance. That way re-running a query won’t have to read the data from the storage as long as the database hasn’t been modified. You can optimize the query cache size by passing the cache_size to the table(...) function:

>>> table = db.table('table_name', cache_size=30)

Hint

You can set cache_size to None to make the cache unlimited in size. Also, you can set cache_size to 0 to disable it.

Hint

The TinyDB query cache doesn’t check if the underlying storage that the database uses has been modified by an external process. In this case the query cache may return outdated results. To clear the cache and read data from the storage again you can use db.clear_cache().

Hint

When using an unlimited cache size and test() queries, TinyDB will store a reference to the test function. As a result of that behavior long-running applications that use lambda functions as a test function may experience memory leaks.

Storage & Middleware

Storage Types

TinyDB comes with two storage types: JSON and in-memory. By default TinyDB stores its data in JSON files so you have to specify the path where to store it:

>>> from tinydb import TinyDB, where
>>> db = TinyDB('path/to/db.json')

To use the in-memory storage, use:

>>> from tinydb.storages import MemoryStorage
>>> db = TinyDB(storage=MemoryStorage)

Hint

All arguments except for the storage argument are forwarded to the underlying storage. For the JSON storage you can use this to pass additional keyword arguments to Python’s json.dump(…) method. For example, you can set it to create prettified JSON files like this:

>>> db = TinyDB('db.json', sort_keys=True, indent=4, separators=(',', ': '))

To modify the default storage for all TinyDB instances, set the DEFAULT_STORAGE class variable:

>>> TinyDB.DEFAULT_STORAGE = MemoryStorage

In case you need to access the storage instance directly, you can use the storage property of your TinyDB instance. This may be useful to call method directly on the storage or middleware:

>>> db = TinyDB(storage=CachingMiddleware(MemoryStorage))
<tinydb.middlewares.CachingMiddleware at 0x10991def0>
>>> db.storage.flush()
Middleware

Middleware wraps around existing storage allowing you to customize their behaviour.

>>> from tinydb.storages import JSONStorage
>>> from tinydb.middlewares import CachingMiddleware
>>> db = TinyDB('/path/to/db.json', storage=CachingMiddleware(JSONStorage))

Hint

You can nest middleware:

>>> db = TinyDB('/path/to/db.json',
                storage=FirstMiddleware(SecondMiddleware(JSONStorage)))
CachingMiddleware

The CachingMiddleware improves speed by reducing disk I/O. It caches all read operations and writes data to disk after a configured number of write operations.

To make sure that all data is safely written when closing the table, use one of these ways:

# Using a context manager:
with database as db:
    # Your operations

# Using the close function
db.close()
MyPy Type Checking

TinyDB comes with type annotations that MyPy can use to make sure you’re using the API correctly. Unfortunately, MyPy doesn’t understand all code patterns that TinyDB uses. For that reason TinyDB ships a MyPy plugin that helps correctly type checking code that uses TinyDB. To use it, add it to the plugins list in the MyPy configuration file (typically located in setup.cfg or mypy.ini):

[mypy]
plugins = tinydb.mypy_plugin

What’s next

Congratulations, you’ve made through the user guide! Now go and build something awesome or dive deeper into TinyDB with these resources:

Extending TinyDB

How to Extend TinyDB

There are three main ways to extend TinyDB and modify its behaviour:

  1. custom storages,
  2. custom middlewares,
  3. use hooks and overrides, and
  4. subclassing TinyDB and Table.

Let’s look at them in this order.

Write a Custom Storage

First, we have support for custom storages. By default TinyDB comes with an in-memory storage and a JSON file storage. But of course you can add your own. Let’s look how you could add a YAML storage using PyYAML:

import yaml

class YAMLStorage(Storage):
    def __init__(self, filename):  # (1)
        self.filename = filename

    def read(self):
        with open(self.filename) as handle:
            try:
                data = yaml.safe_load(handle.read())  # (2)
                return data
            except yaml.YAMLError:
                return None  # (3)

    def write(self, data):
        with open(self.filename, 'w+') as handle:
            yaml.dump(data, handle)

    def close(self):  # (4)
        pass

There are some things we should look closer at:

  1. The constructor will receive all arguments passed to TinyDB when creating the database instance (except storage which TinyDB itself consumes). In other words calling TinyDB('something', storage=YAMLStorage) will pass 'something' as an argument to YAMLStorage.

  2. We use yaml.safe_load as recommended by the PyYAML documentation when processing data from a potentially untrusted source.

  3. If the storage is uninitialized, TinyDB expects the storage to return None so it can do any internal initialization that is necessary.

  4. If your storage needs any cleanup (like closing file handles) before an instance is destroyed, you can put it in the close() method. To run these, you’ll either have to run db.close() on your TinyDB instance or use it as a context manager, like this:

    with TinyDB('db.yml', storage=YAMLStorage) as db:
    # ...

Finally, using the YAML storage is very straight-forward:

db = TinyDB('db.yml', storage=YAMLStorage)
# ...

Write Custom Middleware

Sometimes you don’t want to write a new storage module but rather modify the behaviour of an existing one. As an example we’ll build middleware that filters out empty items.

Because middleware acts as a wrapper around a storage, they needs a read() and a write(data) method. In addition, they can access the underlying storage via self.storage. Before we start implementing we should look at the structure of the data that the middleware receives. Here’s what the data that goes through the middleware looks like:

{
    '_default': {
        1: {'key': 'value'},
        2: {'key': 'value'},
        # other items
    },
    # other tables
}

Thus, we’ll need two nested loops:

  1. Process every table
  2. Process every item

Now let’s implement that:

class RemoveEmptyItemsMiddleware(Middleware):
    def __init__(self, storage_cls):
        # Any middleware *has* to call the super constructor
        # with storage_cls
        super(self).__init__(storage_cls)  # (1)

    def read(self):
        data = self.storage.read()

        for table_name in data:
            table_data = data[table_name]

            for doc_id in table:
                item = table_data[doc_id]

                if item == {}:
                    del table_data[doc_id]

        return data

    def write(self, data):
        for table_name in data:
            table_data = data[table_name]

            for doc_id in table:
                item = table_data[doc_id]

                if item == {}:
                    del table_data[doc_id]

        self.storage.write(data)

    def close(self):
        self.storage.close()

Note that the constructor calls the middleware constructor (1) and passes the storage class to the middleware constructor.

To wrap storage with this new middleware, we use it like this:

db = TinyDB(storage=RemoveEmptyItemsMiddleware(SomeStorageClass))

Here SomeStorageClass should be replaced with the storage you want to use. If you leave it empty, the default storage will be used (which is the JSONStorage).

Use hooks and overrides

There are cases when neither creating a custom storage nor using a custom middlware will allow you to adapt TinyDB in the way you need. In this case you can modify TinyDB’s behavior by using predefined hooks and override points. For example you can configure the name of the default table by setting TinyDB.default_table_name:

TinyDB.default_table_name = 'my_table_name'

Both TinyDB and the Table classes allow modifying their behavior using hooks and overrides. To use Table’s overrides, you can access the class using TinyDB.table_class:

TinyDB.table_class.default_query_cache_capacity = 100

Read the API Documentation for more details on the available hooks and override points.

Subclassing TinyDB and Table

Finally, there’s the last option to modify TinyDB’s behavior. That way you can change how TinyDB itself works more deeply than using the other extension mechanisms.

When creating a subclass you can use it by using hooks and overrides to override the default classes that TinyDB uses:

class MyTable(Table):
    # Add your method overrides
    ...

TinyDB.table_class = MyTable

# Continue using TinyDB as usual

TinyDB’s source code is documented with extensions in mind, explaining how everything works even for internal methods and classes. Feel free to dig into the source and adapt everything you need for your projects.

Extensions

Here are some extensions that might be useful to you:

tinyindex

Repo: https://github.com/eugene-eeo/tinyindex
Status: experimental
Description: Document indexing for TinyDB. Basically ensures deterministic (as long as there aren’t any changes to the table) yielding of documents.

tinymongo

Repo: https://github.com/schapman1974/tinymongo
Status: experimental
Description: A simple wrapper that allows to use TinyDB as a flat file drop-in replacement for MongoDB.

TinyMP

Repo: https://github.com/alshapton/TinyMP
Status: stable
Description: A MessagePack-based storage extension to tinydb using http://msgpack.org

tinyrecord

Repo: https://github.com/eugene-eeo/tinyrecord
Status: stable
Description: Tinyrecord is a library which implements experimental atomic transaction support for the TinyDB NoSQL database. It uses a record-first then execute architecture which allows us to minimize the time that we are within a thread lock.

tinydb-appengine

Repo: https://github.com/imalento/tinydb-appengine
Status: stable
Description: tinydb-appengine provides TinyDB storage for App Engine. You can use JSON readonly.

tinydb-serialization

Repo: https://github.com/msiemens/tinydb-serialization
Status: stable
Description: tinydb-serialization provides serialization for objects that TinyDB otherwise couldn’t handle.

tinydb-smartcache

Repo: https://github.com/msiemens/tinydb-smartcache
Status: stable
Description: tinydb-smartcache provides a smart query cache for TinyDB. It updates the query cache when inserting/removing/updating documents so the cache doesn’t get invalidated. It’s useful if you perform lots of queries while the data changes only little.

aiotinydb

Repo: https://github.com/ASMfreaK/aiotinydb
Status: stable
Description: asyncio compatibility shim for TinyDB. Enables usage of TinyDB in asyncio-aware contexts without slow syncronous IO.

TinyDBTimestamps

Repo: https://github.com/pachacamac/TinyDBTimestamps
Status: experimental
Description: Automatically add create at/ update at timestamps to TinyDB documents.

API Reference

API Documentation

tinydb.database

class tinydb.database.TinyDB(*args, **kwargs)[source]

The main class of TinyDB.

The TinyDB class is responsible for creating the storage class instance that will store this database’s documents, managing the database tables as well as providing access to the default table.

For table management, a simple dict is used that stores the table class instances accessible using their table name.

Default table access is provided by forwarding all unknown method calls and property access operations to the default table by implementing __getattr__.

When creating a new instance, all arguments and keyword arguments (except for storage) will be passed to the storage class that is provided. If no storage class is specified, JSONStorage will be used.

Customization

For customization, the following class variables can be set:

  • table_class defines the class that is used to create tables,
  • default_table_name defines the name of the default table, and
  • default_storage_class will define the class that will be used to create storage instances if no other storage is passed.

New in version 4.0.

Data Storage Model

Data is stored using a storage class that provides persistence for a dict instance. This dict contains all tables and their data. The data is modelled like this:

{
    'table1': {
        0: {document...},
        1: {document...},
    },
    'table2': {
        ...
    }
}

Each entry in this dict uses the table name as its key and a dict of documents as its value. The document dict contains document IDs as keys and the documents themselves as values.

Parameters:storage – The class of the storage to use. Will be initialized with args and kwargs.
table_class

alias of tinydb.table.Table

default_table_name = '_default'

The name of the default table

New in version 4.0.

default_storage_class

alias of tinydb.storages.JSONStorage

table(name: str, **kwargs) → tinydb.table.Table[source]

Get access to a specific table.

If the table hasn’t been accessed yet, a new table instance will be created using the table_class class. Otherwise, the previously created table instance wil be returned.

All futher options besides the name are passed to the table class which by default is Table. Check its documentation for further parameters you can pass.

Parameters:
  • name – The name of the table.
  • kwargs – Keyword arguments to pass to the table class constructor
tables() → Set[str][source]

Get the names of all tables in the database.

Returns:a set of table names
drop_tables() → None[source]

Drop all tables from the database. CANNOT BE REVERSED!

drop_table(name: str) → None[source]

Drop a specific table from the database. CANNOT BE REVERSED!

Parameters:name – The name of the table to drop.
storage

Get the storage instance used for this TinyDB instance.

Returns:This instance’s storage
Return type:Storage
close() → None[source]

Close the database.

This may be needed if the storage instance used for this database needs to perform cleanup operations like closing file handles.

To ensure this method is called, the TinyDB instance can be used as a context manager:

with TinyDB('data.json') as db:
    db.insert({'foo': 'bar'})

Upon leaving this context, the close method will be called.

tinydb.table

class tinydb.table.Table(storage: tinydb.storages.Storage, name: str, cache_size: int = 10)[source]

Represents a single TinyDB table.

It provides methods for accessing and manipulating documents.

Query Cache

As an optimization, a query cache is implemented using a LRUCache. This class mimics the interface of a normal dict, but starts to remove the least-recently used entries once a threshold is reached.

The query cache is updated on every search operation. When writing data, the whole cache is discareded as the query results may have changed.

Customization

For customization, the following class variables can be set:

  • document_class defines the class that is used to represent documents,
  • document_id_class defines the class that is used to represent document IDs,
  • query_cache_class defines the class that is used for the query cache
  • default_query_cache_capacity defines the default capacity of the query cache

New in version 4.0.

Parameters:
  • storage – The storage instance to use for this table
  • name – The table name
  • cache_size – Maximum capacity of query cache
document_class

The class used to represent documents

New in version 4.0.

alias of Document

document_id_class

alias of builtins.int

query_cache_class

alias of tinydb.utils.LRUCache

default_query_cache_capacity = 10

The default capacity of the query cache

New in version 4.0.

__init__(storage: tinydb.storages.Storage, name: str, cache_size: int = 10)[source]

Create a table instance.

__repr__()[source]

Return repr(self).

name

Get the table name.

storage

Get the table storage instance.

insert(document: Mapping[KT, VT_co]) → int[source]

Insert a new document into the table.

Parameters:document – the document to insert
Returns:the inserted document’s ID
insert_multiple(documents: Iterable[Mapping[KT, VT_co]]) → List[int][source]

Insert multiple documents into the table.

Parameters:documents – a Iterable of documents to insert
Returns:a list containing the inserted documents’ IDs
all() → List[tinydb.table.Document][source]

Get all documents stored in the table.

Returns:a list with all documents.
search(cond: tinydb.queries.QueryLike) → List[tinydb.table.Document][source]

Search for all documents matching a ‘where’ cond.

Parameters:cond – the condition to check against
Returns:list of matching documents
get(cond: Optional[tinydb.queries.QueryLike] = None, doc_id: Optional[int] = None) → Optional[tinydb.table.Document][source]

Get exactly one document specified by a query or a document ID.

Returns None if the document doesn’t exist.

Parameters:
  • cond – the condition to check against
  • doc_id – the document’s ID
Returns:

the document or None
contains(cond: Optional[tinydb.queries.QueryLike] = None, doc_id: Optional[int] = None) → bool[source]

Check whether the database contains a document matching a query or an ID.

If doc_id is set, it checks if the db contains the specified ID.

Parameters:
  • cond – the condition use
  • doc_id – the document ID to look for
update(fields: Union[Mapping[KT, VT_co], Callable[[Mapping[KT, VT_co]], None]], cond: Optional[tinydb.queries.QueryLike] = None, doc_ids: Optional[Iterable[int]] = None) → List[int][source]

Update all matching documents to have a given set of fields.

Parameters:
  • fields – the fields that the matching documents will have or a method that will update the documents
  • cond – which documents to update
  • doc_ids – a list of document IDs
Returns:

a list containing the updated document’s ID
update_multiple(updates: Iterable[Tuple[Union[Mapping[KT, VT_co], Callable[[Mapping[KT, VT_co]], None]], tinydb.queries.QueryLike]]) → List[int][source]

Update all matching documents to have a given set of fields.

Returns:a list containing the updated document’s ID
upsert(document: Mapping[KT, VT_co], cond: Optional[tinydb.queries.QueryLike] = None) → List[int][source]

Update documents, if they exist, insert them otherwise.

Note: This will update all documents matching the query. Document argument can be a tinydb.table.Document object if you want to specify a doc_id.

Parameters:
  • document – the document to insert or the fields to update
  • cond – which document to look for, optional if you’ve passed a

Document with a doc_id :returns: a list containing the updated documents’ IDs

remove(cond: Optional[tinydb.queries.QueryLike] = None, doc_ids: Optional[Iterable[int]] = None) → List[int][source]

Remove all matching documents.

Parameters:
  • cond – the condition to check against
  • doc_ids – a list of document IDs
Returns:

a list containing the removed documents’ ID
truncate() → None[source]

Truncate the table by removing all documents.

count(cond: tinydb.queries.QueryLike) → int[source]

Count the documents matching a query.

Parameters:cond – the condition use
clear_cache() → None[source]

Clear the query cache.

__len__()[source]

Count the total number of documents in this table.

__iter__() → Iterator[tinydb.table.Document][source]

Iterate over all documents stored in the table.

Returns:an iterator over all documents.
class tinydb.table.Document(value: Mapping[KT, VT_co], doc_id: int)[source]

A document stored in the database.

This class provides a way to access both a document’s content as well as its ID using doc.doc_id.

doc_id

The document’s id

__init__(value: Mapping[KT, VT_co], doc_id: int)[source]

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

tinydb.queries

class tinydb.queries.Query[source]

TinyDB Queries.

Allows to build queries for TinyDB databases. There are two main ways of using queries:

  1. ORM-like usage:
>>> User = Query()
>>> db.search(User.name == 'John Doe')
>>> db.search(User['logged-in'] == True)
  1. Classical usage:
>>> db.search(where('value') == True)

Note that where(...) is a shorthand for Query(...) allowing for a more fluent syntax.

Besides the methods documented here you can combine queries using the binary AND and OR operators:

>>> # Binary AND:
>>> db.search((where('field1').exists()) & (where('field2') == 5))
>>> # Binary OR:
>>> db.search((where('field1').exists()) | (where('field2') == 5))

Queries are executed by calling the resulting object. They expect to get the document to test as the first argument and return True or False depending on whether the documents matches the query or not.

__init__() → None[source]

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

__repr__()[source]

Return repr(self).

__hash__()[source]

Return hash(self).

__eq__(rhs: Any)[source]

Test a dict value for equality.

>>> Query().f1 == 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
__ne__(rhs: Any)[source]

Test a dict value for inequality.

>>> Query().f1 != 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
__lt__(rhs: Any) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Test a dict value for being lower than another value.

>>> Query().f1 < 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
__le__(rhs: Any) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Test a dict value for being lower than or equal to another value.

>>> where('f1') <= 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
__gt__(rhs: Any) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Test a dict value for being greater than another value.

>>> Query().f1 > 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
__ge__(rhs: Any) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Test a dict value for being greater than or equal to another value.

>>> Query().f1 >= 42
Parameters:rhs – The value to compare against
exists() → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Test for a dict where a provided key exists.

>>> Query().f1.exists()
matches(regex: str, flags: int = 0) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Run a regex test against a dict value (whole string has to match).

>>> Query().f1.matches(r'^\w+$')
Parameters:
  • regex – The regular expression to use for matching
  • flags – regex flags to pass to re.match
search(regex: str, flags: int = 0) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Run a regex test against a dict value (only substring string has to match).

>>> Query().f1.search(r'^\w+$')
Parameters:
  • regex – The regular expression to use for matching
  • flags – regex flags to pass to re.match
test(func: Callable[[Mapping[KT, VT_co]], bool], *args) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Run a user-defined test function against a dict value.

>>> def test_func(val):
...     return val == 42
...
>>> Query().f1.test(test_func)

Warning

The test fuction provided needs to be deterministic (returning the same value when provided with the same arguments), otherwise this may mess up the query cache that Table implements.

Parameters:
  • func – The function to call, passing the dict as the first argument
  • args – Additional arguments to pass to the test function
any(cond: Union[tinydb.queries.QueryInstance, List[Any]]) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Check if a condition is met by any document in a list, where a condition can also be a sequence (e.g. list).

>>> Query().f1.any(Query().f2 == 1)

Matches:

{'f1': [{'f2': 1}, {'f2': 0}]}

>>> Query().f1.any([1, 2, 3])

Matches:

{'f1': [1, 2]}
{'f1': [3, 4, 5]}
Parameters:cond – Either a query that at least one document has to match or a list of which at least one document has to be contained in the tested document.
all(cond: Union[QueryInstance, List[Any]]) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Check if a condition is met by all documents in a list, where a condition can also be a sequence (e.g. list).

>>> Query().f1.all(Query().f2 == 1)

Matches:

{'f1': [{'f2': 1}, {'f2': 1}]}

>>> Query().f1.all([1, 2, 3])

Matches:

{'f1': [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]}
Parameters:cond – Either a query that all documents have to match or a list which has to be contained in the tested document.
one_of(items: List[Any]) → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Check if the value is contained in a list or generator.

>>> Query().f1.one_of(['value 1', 'value 2'])
Parameters:items – The list of items to check with
noop() → tinydb.queries.QueryInstance[source]

Always evaluate to True.

Useful for having a base value when composing queries dynamically.

class tinydb.queries.QueryInstance(test: Callable[[Mapping[KT, VT_co]], bool], hashval: Tuple)[source]

A query instance.

This is the object on which the actual query operations are performed. The Query class acts like a query builder and generates QueryInstance objects which will evaluate their query against a given document when called.

Query instances can be combined using logical OR and AND and inverted using logical NOT.

In order to be usable in a query cache, a query needs to have a stable hash value with the same query always returning the same hash. That way a query instance can be used as a key in a dictionary.

__init__(test: Callable[[Mapping[KT, VT_co]], bool], hashval: Tuple)[source]

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

__call__(value: Mapping[KT, VT_co]) → bool[source]

Evaluate the query to check if it matches a specified value.

Parameters:value – The value to check.
Returns:Wether the value matchs this query.
__hash__()[source]

Return hash(self).

__repr__()[source]

Return repr(self).

__eq__(other: object)[source]

Return self==value.

tinydb.operations

A collection of update operations for TinyDB.

They are used for updates like this:

>>> db.update(delete('foo'), where('foo') == 2)

This would delete the foo field from all documents where foo equals 2.

tinydb.operations.delete(field)[source]

Delete a given field from the document.

tinydb.operations.add(field, n)[source]

Add n to a given field in the document.

tinydb.operations.subtract(field, n)[source]

Substract n to a given field in the document.

tinydb.operations.set(field, val)[source]

Set a given field to val.

tinydb.operations.increment(field)[source]

Increment a given field in the document by 1.

tinydb.operations.decrement(field)[source]

Decrement a given field in the document by 1.

tinydb.storage

Contains the base class for storages and implementations.

class tinydb.storages.Storage[source]

The abstract base class for all Storages.

A Storage (de)serializes the current state of the database and stores it in some place (memory, file on disk, …).

read()[source]

Read the last stored state.

write(data)[source]

Write the current state of the database to the storage.

close()[source]

Optional: Close open file handles, etc.

class tinydb.storages.JSONStorage(path: str, create_dirs=False, encoding=None, access_mode='r+', **kwargs)[source]

Store the data in a JSON file.

__init__(path: str, create_dirs=False, encoding=None, access_mode='r+', **kwargs)[source]

Create a new instance.

Also creates the storage file, if it doesn’t exist and the access mode is appropriate for writing.

Parameters:
  • path – Where to store the JSON data.
  • access_mode (str) – mode in which the file is opened (r, r+, w, a, x, b, t, +, U)
close() → None[source]

Optional: Close open file handles, etc.

read() → Optional[Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]]][source]

Read the current state.

Any kind of deserialization should go here.

Return None here to indicate that the storage is empty.

write(data: Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]])[source]

Write the current state of the database to the storage.

Any kind of serialization should go here.

Parameters:data – The current state of the database.
class tinydb.storages.MemoryStorage[source]

Store the data as JSON in memory.

__init__()[source]

Create a new instance.

read() → Optional[Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]]][source]

Read the current state.

Any kind of deserialization should go here.

Return None here to indicate that the storage is empty.

write(data: Dict[str, Dict[str, Any]])[source]

Write the current state of the database to the storage.

Any kind of serialization should go here.

Parameters:data – The current state of the database.

tinydb.middlewares

Contains the base class for middlewares and implementations.

class tinydb.middlewares.Middleware[source]

The base class for all Middlewares.

Middlewares hook into the read/write process of TinyDB allowing you to extend the behaviour by adding caching, logging, …

If read() or write() are not overloaded, they will be forwarded directly to the storage instance.

storage
Type:Storage

Access to the underlying storage instance.

read()

Read the last stored state.

write(data)

Write the current state of the database to the storage.

close()

Optional: Close open file handles, etc.

class tinydb.middlewares.CachingMiddleware(storage_cls)[source]

Add some caching to TinyDB.

This Middleware aims to improve the performance of TinyDB by writing only the last DB state every WRITE_CACHE_SIZE time and reading always from cache.

WRITE_CACHE_SIZE = 1000

The number of write operations to cache before writing to disc

__init__(storage_cls)[source]

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

flush()[source]

Flush all unwritten data to disk.

tinydb.utils

class tinydb.utils.LRUCache(capacity=None)[source]

A least-recently used (LRU) cache with a fixed cache size.

This class acts as a dictionary but has a limited size. If the number of entries in the cache exeeds the cache size, the leat-recently accessed entry will be discareded.

This is implemented using an OrderedDict. On every access the accessed entry is moved to the front by re-inserting it into the OrderedDict. When adding an entry and the cache size is exceeded, the last entry will be discareded.

__init__(capacity=None)[source]

Initialize self. See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.

__weakref__

list of weak references to the object (if defined)

clear() → None. Remove all items from D.[source]
get(k[, d]) → D[k] if k in D, else d. d defaults to None.[source]

Additional Notes

Contribution Guidelines

Whether reporting bugs, discussing improvements and new ideas or writing extensions: Contributions to TinyDB are welcome! Here’s how to get started:

  1. Check for open issues or open a fresh issue to start a discussion around a feature idea or a bug
  2. Fork the repository on Github, create a new branch off the master branch and start making your changes (known as GitHub Flow)
  3. Write a test which shows that the bug was fixed or that the feature works as expected
  4. Send a pull request and bug the maintainer until it gets merged and published :)

Philosophy of TinyDB

TinyDB aims to be simple and fun to use. Therefore two key values are simplicity and elegance of interfaces and code. These values will contradict each other from time to time. In these cases , try using as little magic as possible. In any case don’t forget documenting code that isn’t clear at first glance.

Code Conventions

In general the TinyDB source should always follow PEP 8. Exceptions are allowed in well justified and documented cases. However we make a small exception concerning docstrings:

When using multiline docstrings, keep the opening and closing triple quotes on their own lines and add an empty line after it.

def some_function():
    """
    Documentation ...
    """

    # implementation ...

Version Numbers

TinyDB follows the SemVer versioning guidelines. This implies that backwards incompatible changes in the API will increment the major version. So think twice before making such changes.

Changelog

Version Numbering

TinyDB follows the SemVer versioning guidelines. For more information, see semver.org

unreleased

  • nothing yet

v4.5.0 (2021-06-25)

  • Feature: Better type hinting/IntelliSense for PyCharm, VS Code and MyPy (see issue 372). PyCharm and VS Code should work out of the box, for MyPy see MyPy Type Checking

v4.4.0 (2021-02-11)

  • Feature: Add operation for searching for all documents that match a dict fragment (see issue 300)
  • Fix: Correctly handle queries that use fields that are also Query methods, e.g. Query()['test'] for searching for documents with a test field (see issue 373)

v4.3.0 (2020-11-14)

  • Feature: Add operation for updating multiple documents: update_multiple (see issue 346)
  • Improvement: Expose type information for MyPy typechecking (PEP 561) (see pull request 352)

v4.2.0 (2020-10-03)

  • Feature: Add support for specifying document IDs during insertion (see issue 303)
  • Internal change: Use OrderedDict.move_to_end() in the query cache (see issue 338)

v4.1.1 (2020-05-08)

  • Fix: Don’t install dev-dependencies when installing from PyPI (see issue 315)

v4.1.0 (2020-05-07)

  • Feature: Add a no-op query Query().noop() (see issue 313)
  • Feature: Add a access_mode flag to JSONStorage to allow opening files read-only (see issue 297)
  • Fix: Don’t drop the first document that’s being inserted when inserting data on an existing database (see issue 314)

v4.0.0 (2020-05-02)

Upgrade Notes

Breaking Changes

  • Python 2 support has been removed, see issue 284 for background

  • API changes:

    • Removed classes: DataProxy, StorageProxy

    • Attributes removed from TinyDB in favor of customizing TinyDB’s behavior by subclassing it and overloading __init__(...) and table(...):

      • DEFAULT_TABLE
      • DEFAULT_TABLE_KWARGS
      • DEFAULT_STORAGE

    • Arguments removed from TinyDB(...):

      • default_table: replace with TinyDB.default_table_name = 'name'
      • table_class: replace with TinyDB.table_class = Class

    • TinyDB.contains(...)’s doc_ids parameter has been renamed to doc_id and now only takes a single document ID

    • TinyDB.purge_tables(...) has been renamed to TinyDB.drop_tables(...)

    • TinyDB.purge_table(...) has been renamed to TinyDB.drop_table(...)

    • TinyDB.write_back(...) has been removed

    • TinyDB.process_elements(...) has been removed

    • Table.purge() has been renamed to Table.truncate()

    • Evaluating an empty Query() without any test operators will now result in an exception, use Query().noop() (introduced in v4.1.0) instead

  • ujson support has been removed, see issue 263 and issue 306 for background

  • The deprecated Element ID API has been removed (e.g. using the Element class or eids parameter) in favor the Document API, see pull request 158 for details on the replacement

Improvements
  • TinyDB’s internal architecture has been reworked to be more simple and streamlined in order to make it easier to customize TinyDB’s behavior
  • With the new architecture, TinyDB performance will improve for many applications
Bugfixes
  • Don’t break the tests when ujson is installed (see issue 262)
  • Fix performance when reading data (see issue 250)
  • Fix inconsistent purge function names (see issue 103)

v3.15.1 (2019-10-26)

  • Internal change: fix missing values handling for LRUCache

v3.15.0 (2019-10-12)

  • Feature: allow setting the parameters of TinyDB’s default table (see issue 278)

v3.14.2 (2019-09-13)

  • Internal change: support correct iteration for LRUCache objects

v3.14.1 (2019-07-03)

  • Internal change: fix Query class to permit subclass creation (see pull request 270)

v3.14.0 (2019-06-18)

  • Change: support for ujson is now deprecated (see issue 263)

v3.13.0 (2019-03-16)

  • Feature: direct access to a TinyDB instance’s storage (see issue 258)

v3.12.2 (2018-12-12)

v3.12.1 (2018-11-09)

  • Fix: Don’t break when searching the same query multiple times (see pull request 249)
  • Internal change: allow collections.abc.Mutable as valid document types (see pull request 245)

v3.12.0 (2018-11-06)

  • Feature: Add encoding option to JSONStorage (see pull request 238)
  • Internal change: allow collections.abc.Mutable as valid document types (see pull request 245)

v3.11.1 (2018-09-13)

  • Bugfix: Make path queries (db.search(where('key))) work again (see issue 232)
  • Improvement: Add custom repr representations for main classes (see pull request 229)

v3.11.0 (2018-08-20)

  • Drop official support for Python 3.3. Python 3.3 has reached its official End Of Life as of September 29, 2017. It will probably continue to work, but will not be tested against (issue 217)
  • Feature: Allow extending TinyDB with a custom storage proxy class (see pull request 224)
  • Bugfix: Return list of document IDs for upsert when creating a new document (see issue 223)

v3.10.0 (2018-07-21)

v3.9.0 (2018-04-24)

  • Feature: Allow setting a table class for single table only (see issue 197)
  • Internal change: call fsync after flushing JSONStorage (see issue 208)

v3.8.1 (2018-03-26)

v3.8.0 (2018-03-01)

  • Feature: Allow disabling the query cache with db.table(name, cache_size=0) (see pull request #187)
  • Feature: Add db.write_back(docs) for replacing documents (see pull request #184)

v3.7.0 (2017-11-11)

v3.6.0 (2017-10-05)

  • Allow updating all documents using db.update(fields) (see issue #157).
  • Rename elements to documents. Document IDs now available with doc.doc_id, using doc.eid is now deprecated (see pull request #158)

v3.5.0 (2017-08-30)

v3.4.1 (2017-08-23)

  • Expose TinyDB version via import tinyb; tinydb.__version__ (see issue #148).

v3.4.0 (2017-08-08)

  • Add new update operations: add(key, value), substract(key, value), and set(key, value) (see pull request #145).

v3.3.1 (2017-06-27)

  • Use relative imports to allow vendoring TinyDB in other packages (see pull request #142).

v3.3.0 (2017-06-05)

  • Allow iterating over a database or table yielding all documents (see pull request #139).

v3.2.3 (2017-04-22)

  • Fix bug with accidental modifications to the query cache when modifying the list of search results (see issue #132).

v3.2.2 (2017-01-16)

  • Fix the Query constructor to prevent wrong usage (see issue #117).

v3.2.1 (2016-06-29)

  • Fix a bug with queries on documents that have a path key (see pull request #107).
  • Don’t write to the database file needlessly when opening the database (see pull request #104).

v3.2.0 (2016-04-25)

  • Add a way to specify the default table name via default_table (see pull request #98).
  • Add db.purge_table(name) to remove a single table (see pull request #100).
    • Along the way: celebrating 100 issues and pull requests! Thanks everyone for every single contribution!
  • Extend API documentation (see issue #96).

v3.1.3 (2016-02-14)

  • Fix a bug when using unhashable documents (lists, dicts) with Query.any or Query.all queries (see a forum post by karibul).

v3.1.2 (2016-01-30)

  • Fix a bug when using unhashable documents (lists, dicts) with Query.any or Query.all queries (see a forum post by karibul).

v3.1.1 (2016-01-23)

  • Inserting a dictionary with data that is not JSON serializable doesn’t lead to corrupt files anymore (see issue #89).
  • Fix a bug in the LRU cache that may lead to an invalid query cache (see issue #87).

v3.1.0 (2015-12-31)

  • db.update(...) and db.remove(...) now return affected document IDs (see issue #83).
  • Inserting an invalid document (i.e. not a dict) now raises an error instead of corrupting the database (see issue #74).

v3.0.0 (2015-11-13)

  • Overhauled Query model:
    • where('...').contains('...') has been renamed to where('...').search('...').
    • Support for ORM-like usage: User = Query(); db.search(User.name == 'John').
    • where('foo') is an alias for Query().foo.
    • where('foo').has('bar') is replaced by either where('foo').bar or Query().foo.bar.
      • In case the key is not a valid Python identifier, array notation can be used: where('a.b.c') is now Query()['a.b.c'].
    • Checking for the existence of a key has to be done explicitely: where('foo').exists().
  • Migrations from v1 to v2 have been removed.
  • SmartCacheTable has been moved to msiemens/tinydb-smartcache.
  • Serialization has been moved to msiemens/tinydb-serialization.
  • Empty storages are now expected to return None instead of raising ValueError. (see issue #67.

v2.4.0 (2015-08-14)

v2.3.2 (2015-05-20)

  • Fix a forgotten debug output in the SerializationMiddleware (see issue #55).
  • Fix an “ignored exception” warning when using the CachingMiddleware (see pull request #54)
  • Fix a problem with symlinks when checking out TinyDB on OSX Yosemite (see issue #52).

v2.3.1 (2015-04-30)

  • Hopefully fix a problem with using TinyDB as a dependency in a setup.py script (see issue #51).

v2.3.0 (2015-04-08)

  • Added support for custom serialization. That way, you can teach TinyDB to store datetime objects in a JSON file :) (see issue #48 and pull request #50)
  • Fixed a performance regression when searching became slower with every search (see issue #49)
  • Internal code has been cleaned up

v2.2.2 (2015-02-12)

  • Fixed a data loss when using CachingMiddleware together with JSONStorage (see issue #47)

v2.2.1 (2015-01-09)

  • Fixed handling of IDs with the JSON backend that converted integers to strings (see issue #45)

v2.2.0 (2014-11-10)

  • Extended any and all queries to take lists as conditions (see pull request #38)
  • Fixed an decode error when installing TinyDB in a non-UTF-8 environment (see pull request #37)
  • Fixed some issues with CachingMiddleware in combination with JSONStorage (see pull request #39)

v2.1.0 (2014-10-14)

  • Added where(...).contains(regex) (see issue #32)
  • Fixed a bug that corrupted data after reopening a database (see issue #34)

v2.0.1 (2014-09-22)

  • Fixed handling of Unicode data in Python 2 (see issue #28).

v2.0.0 (2014-09-05)

Upgrade Notes

Warning

TinyDB changed the way data is stored. You may need to migrate your databases to the new scheme. Check out the Upgrade Notes for details.

v1.4.0 (2014-07-22)

  • Added insert_multiple function (see issue #8).

v1.3.0 (2014-07-02)

  • Fixed bug #7: IDs not unique.
  • Extended the API: db.count(where(...)) and db.contains(where(...)).
  • The syntax query in db is now deprecated and replaced by db.contains.

v1.2.0 (2014-06-19)

v1.1.1 (2014-06-14)

  • Merged PR #5: Fix minor documentation typos and style issues.

v1.1.0 (2014-05-06)

  • Improved the docs and fixed some typos.
  • Refactored some internal code.
  • Fixed a bug with multiple TinyDB? instances.

v1.0.1 (2014-04-26)

  • Fixed a bug in JSONStorage that broke the database when removing entries.

v1.0.0 (2013-07-20)

  • First official release – consider TinyDB stable now.

Upgrading to Newer Releases

Version 4.0

  • API changes:
    • Replace TinyDB.purge_tables(...) with TinyDB.drop_tables(...)
    • Replace TinyDB.purge_table(...) with TinyDB.drop_table(...)
    • Replace Table.purge() with Table.trunacte()
    • Replace TinyDB(default_table='name') with TinyDB.default_table_name = 'name'
    • Replace TinyDB(table_class=Class) with TinyDB.table_class = Class
    • If you were using TinyDB.DEFAULT_TABLE, TinyDB.DEFAULT_TABLE_KWARGS, or TinyDB.DEFAULT_STORAGE: Use the new methods for customizing TinyDB described in How to Extend TinyDB

Version 3.0

Breaking API Changes
  • Querying (see Issue #62):
    • where('...').contains('...') has been renamed to where('...').search('...').
    • where('foo').has('bar') is replaced by either where('foo').bar or Query().foo.bar.
      • In case the key is not a valid Python identifier, array notation can be used: where('a.b.c') is now Query()['a.b.c'].
  • Checking for the existence of a key has to be done explicitely: where('foo').exists().

Version 2.0

Breaking API Changes
  • The syntax query in db is not supported any more. Use db.contains(...) instead.
  • The ConcurrencyMiddleware has been removed due to a insecure implementation (see Issue #18). Consider tinyrecord instead.

Apart from that the API remains compatible to v1.4 and prior.

For migration from v1 to v2, check out the v2.0 documentation