Open a DBF file from a BytesIo

Question

I try to remove fields from a DBF that I get from internet.

It is zipped and in order to avoid to write any data on the disk before applying the modifications I have to do on it, I extract it into a BytesIo object.

Then, first : Does the dbf library handles memory files like BytesIo? Second : Is my unwanted fields removal method efficient?

Here is what I ended up with:

def removeFields(name, raw):
    import dbf

    data = io.BytesIO(raw)
    print "Editing "+name
    table = dbf.Table(data, on_disk=False)
    table.open()
    table.delete_fields(rmv_dict[name])
    table.close()
    return (data.getvalue())

Answer 1

Regrettably, the dbf library doesn't handle any memory files (confirmed by her author). Some like dbfread handle them, but don't provide any method to delete fields simply in their docs.

Fortunately, I found a recipe for reading/writing dbf files with variables that are easy to handle : http://code.activestate.com/recipes/362715-dbf-reader-and-writer/