Better than accessing the hard drive every time

CachedFile.py

"""This class provides a way to access to most up-to-date version of a file without reading the whole file from the harddrive.
It does this by first reading when the file was last updated from the filesystem and only reads the whole file if the
file has been updated since. This is more useful for large files and works because RAM has faster access than the harddrive."""


from datetime import datetime
import os


class CachedFile:
    def __init__(self, filename):
        self.filename = filename,
        self.updated_when = datetime.now().timestamp()
        self.blob = self.get_by_filename()

    def get_value(self):
        last_updated = self.check_updated()
        if last_updated == False:
            return '{}'
        if last_updated > self.updated_when:
            value = self.get_by_filename()
            self.updated_when = datetime.now().timestamp()
            return value

        return self.blob

    def get_by_filename(self):
        return open(self.filename[0], 'r').read()

    def check_updated(self):
        try:
            return os.path.getmtime(self.filename[0])
        except:
            return False