dhara 0.8.1

A Python Persistent Object Database with ACID Transactions

dhara

dhara is a modern continuation of Durus, a persistent object system for applications written in the Python programming language. It could be called a noSQL database. However, it does provide "ACID" properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability).

The implementation of dhara is not multi-threaded but does provide concurrency via a client/server model. It is optimized for read heavy work loads and aggressively caches persistent objects in memory. For many applications, this design enables good performance with minimal effort from application programmers.

Origin

dhara was originally written by the MEMS Exchange software development team at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). dhara was designed to be the storage component for the Python-powered web sites operated by the MEMS Exchange. See doc/README_CNRI.txt for more details.

Overview

dhara offers an easy way to use and maintain a consistent collection of object instances used by one or more processes. Access and change of a persistent instances is managed through a cached Connection instance which includes commit() and abort() methods so that changes are transactional.

CLI Commands

Dhara provides a unified CLI with three command groups:

MCP Server Commands (for AI/Agent Workflows)

dhara mcp start              # Start MCP server
dhara mcp stop               # Stop MCP server
dhara mcp status             # Check server status
dhara mcp health             # Health check

Database Commands (Durus Operations)

dhara db start               # Start Durus storage server
dhara db client              # Connect to server (interactive)
dhara db pack                # Reclaim storage space

Common options for database commands:

• --file PATH or -f PATH - Database file path
• --host HOST or -h HOST - Server host (default: 127.0.0.1)
• --port PORT or -p PORT - Server port (default: 2972)
• --readonly - Open in read-only mode

Dhara-Specific Commands

dhara adapters               # List registered adapters
dhara storage                # Display storage information
dhara admin                  # Launch admin shell (IPython)

Quick Demo

Start a Dhara server:

dhara db start

This starts a Dhara storage server using a temporary file and listening for clients on localhost port 2972.

Connect as a client:

dhara db client

This opens an interactive IPython shell connected to the storage server. You have access to a dictionary-like persistent object, root. If you make changes to items of root and run connection.commit(), the changes are written to the file. If you make changes and then run connection.abort(), the attributes revert back to the values they had at the last commit.

Multiple clients: Run dhara db client in another terminal to see how committed changes to root in one client are available in other clients when they synchronize via connection.abort() or connection.commit().

Stop the server: Press Control-C in the server terminal.

Persistence example:

# Start server with a persistent file
dhara db server --file test.dhara

# Connect, make changes, commit
dhara db client --file test.dhara
# In the shell:
# >>> root["hello"] = "world"
# >>> connection.commit()

# Stop and restart - data persists
dhara db server --file test.dhara
dhara db client --file test.dhara
# >>> root["hello"]
# 'world'

Direct file access (no server):

dhara db client --file test.dhara

All commands accept --help for more options.

Using dhara in a Program

To use dhara, a Python program needs to make a Storage instance and a Connection instance. For the Storage instance, you have two choices: FileStorage or ClientStorage. If your program is to be one of several processes accessing a shared collection of objects, then you want ClientStorage. If your program has no competition, then choose FileStorage. There is only one Connection class, and the constructor takes a storage instance as an argument.

Example using FileStorage to open a Connection to a file:

from dhara.file_storage import FileStorage
from dhara.connection import Connection
connection = Connection(FileStorage("test.dhara"))

Example using ClientStorage to open a Connection to a dhara server:

from dhara.client_storage import ClientStorage
from dhara.connection import Connection
connection = Connection(ClientStorage())

Note that the ClientStorage constructor supports the address keyword that you can use to specify the address to use. The value must be either a (host, port) tuple or a string giving a path to use for a unix domain socket. If you provide the address you should be sure to start the storage server the same way. The dhara command line tool also supports options to specify the address.

The connection instance has a get_root() method that you can use to obtain the root object.

In your program, you can make changes to the root object attributes, and call connection.commit() or connection.abort() to lock in or revert changes made since the last commit. The root object is actually an instance of dhara.persistent_dict.PersistentDict, which means that it can be used like a regular dict, except that changes will be managed by the Connection. There is a similar class, dhara.persistent_list.PersistentList that provides list-like behavior, except managed by the Connection.

PersistentList and PersistentDict both inherit from dhara.persistent.Persistent, and this is the key to making your own classes participate in the dhara persistence system. Just add Persistent class A's list of bases, and your instances will know how to manage changes to their attributes through a Connection. To actually store an instance x of A in the storage, though, you need to commit a reference to x in some object that is already stored in the database. The root object is always there, for example, so you can do something like this:

# Assume mymodule defines A as a subclass of Persistent.
from mymodule import A
x = A()
root = connection.get_root() # connection set as shown above.
root["sample"] = x           # root is dict-like
connection.commit()          # Now x is stored.

Subsequent changes to x, or to new A instances put on attributes of X, and so on, will all be managed by the Connection just as for the root object. This management of the Persistent instance continues as long as the instance is in the storage. Sometimes, though, we wish to remove "garbage" Persistent instances from the storage so that the file can be smaller. This garbage collection can be done manually by calling the Connection's pack() method. If you are using a storage server to share a Storage, you can use the gcinterval argument to tell it to take care of garbage collection automatically.

Non-Persistent Containers

When you change an attribute of a Persistent instance, the fact that the instance has been changed is noted with the Connection, so that the Connection knows what instances need to be stored on the next commit(). The same change-tracking occurs automatically when you make dict-like changes to PersistentDict instances or list-like changes to PersistentList instances. If, however, you make changes to a non-persistent container, even if it is the value of an attribute of a Persistent instance, the changes are not automatically noted with the Connection. To make sure that your changes do get saved, you must call the _p_note_change() method of the Persistent instance that refers to the changed non-persistent container. You can see an example of this by looking at the source code of PersistentDict and PersistentList, both of which maintain a non-persistent container on a data attribute, shadow the methods of the underlying container, and add calls to self._p_note_change() in every method that makes changes.

Storage back-ends

This version of dhara includes a number of back-end storage implementations that may be used. The default is FileStorage, an append-only journal that includes an on-disk index of object record offsets. This module has the advantage of fast startup time with slightly slower read performance (two disk seeks per object load).

Also available is FileStorage2, an older version of the FileStorage format. It uses an in-memory index for object offsets and so it has slower startup time (reading the index into memory takes time, especially on large databases) but faster read performance (one seek per object load).

Finally, there is an experimental Sqlite storage module, SqliteStorage. The module uses a SQLite3 database to persist object data. One disadvantage of this module compared to the others is that online backups are more difficult (for the other two it is safe to just copy the file while the server is running). You also lose the ability to do point-in-time recovery (which the other two storage implementations provide, assuming you did not yet pack the DB).

Acknowledgements

dhara is a modern fork and continuation of Durus, originally developed by the MEMS Exchange software development team at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). We are grateful for the foundational work done by the original Durus developers.

This modern version (dhara) includes:

• Modern Python 3.13+ type hints
• Enhanced serialization options (msgspec, dill)
• Oneiric configuration and logging integration
• MCP server for modern AI/agent workflows
• Comprehensive security and performance improvements

The name dhara (ध्रुव) is Sanskrit for "immovable, eternal, constant," or "Pole Star" - complementing the original Latin name Durus, meaning "hard, sturdy, tough, enduring."

License

dhara is released under an open-source license. See LICENSE.txt for details.