ttldictionary's Introduction

Time-to-live python dictionary

This repository contains the implementation of a simple dictionary with Time-To-Live (TTL) functionality in Python. This code was created as a part of side project.

Overview

The TTLDictionary is a dictionary-like object where each key-value pair has a time-to-live (TTL). The key-value pairs are automatically removed from the dictionary when their TTL expires. This is achieved by using a daemon thread that continuously checks for expired key-value pairs and removes them.

Features

Thread-safe operations: The TTLDictionary uses a threading.RLock() to ensure thread-safe operations.
Automatic cleanup: A daemon thread is used to continuously clean up expired key-value pairs.
Flexible TTL: Each key-value pair can have a different TTL. If no TTL is provided, the key-value pair will not expire.
The repository also includes a set of unit tests (ttl_dictionary_ut.py) to verify the functionality of the TTLDictionary

Example of Usage

from ttl_dictionary import TTLDictionary
import time

# Create a new TTLDictionary
ttl_dict = TTLDictionary()

# Add a key-value pair with a TTL of 5 seconds
ttl_dict["key1"] = ("value1", 5)

# Add a key-value pair with no TTL (it will not expire)
ttl_dict["key2"] = "value2"

# Get a value
print(ttl_dict["key1"])  # Outputs: value1

# Wait for 6 seconds
time.sleep(6)

# Try to get the value of "key1" again
try:
    print(ttl_dict["key1"])
except KeyError:
    print("Key1 is not in the dictionary")  # Outputs: Key1 is not in the dictionary

# Check if "key2" is in the dictionary
if "key2" in ttl_dict:
    print("Key2 is in the dictionary")  # Outputs: Key2 is in the dictionary

# Get the number of key-value pairs in the dictionary
print(len(ttl_dict))  # Outputs: 1