pickletest.py

import pickle

path = "temp.db"


def get_db():
    #touch the file. if it didn't exist, return empty dict
    with open(path, 'a+') as f:
        if len(f.read()) == 0:
            print "file was empty"
            return dict()

    with open(path, 'rb') as pf:
        database = pickle.load(pf)
    return database


def save_db(database_dict):
    # wb should add the file if it didn't exist
    with open(path, "wb") as pf:
        pickle.dump(database_dict, pf)

db = get_db()
db["test"] = 1
save_db(db)
test = get_db()
print "db in memory: ", db
print "db from disk after save: ", test

assert test["test"] == db["test"]

https://gist.github.com/cpdean/5049834#file-pickletest-py-L20: ugh.