What is mmap?
- Map file objects directly into memory. Memory-mapped file objects behave like both strings and like file objects. Unlike normal string objects, however, these are mutable.
- You can use mmap objects in most places where strings are expected. A memory-mapped file is created by the mmap constructor, which is different on Unix and on Windows. In either case you must provide a file descriptor for a file opened for update
What is memoryview object ?
- Buffer protocol that provides a way to access the internal data of an object.
- Memoryview is a safe way to expose buffer protocol in python.
Why do we need memoryview object ?
- Whenever we perform an action on an object (pass it to a function, slice it etc.) , we need to make a copy of it. If we have to work with a huge file, this would create unnecessary overhead. Using buffer protocol, we can give another object access to the file to user/modify it without copying it.
- Memoryview (obj): obj must support buffer protocol.
memoryview()method returns a memoryview object of the given object.