Cache¶

ilostat caches downloaded data and metadata locally to avoid repeatedly downloading the same resources.

Default cache¶

No cache configuration is required:

import ilostat

df = ilostat.get_df(
    "UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_NB_A",
)

When cache_dir is not specified, ilostat uses the operating system's standard user cache location.

Inspect the location with:

ilostat.get_cache_dir()

The cache is persistent and can be reused by later Python sessions.

Specify a custom cache with cache_dir:

df = ilostat.get_df(
    "UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_NB_A",
    cache_dir="D:/ilostat_cache",
)

The same cache can be used by SDMX operations:

structure = ilostat.get_sdmx(
    "UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_NB_A",
    resource="structure",
    cache_dir="D:/ilostat_cache",
)

Inspect a custom cache location with:

ilostat.get_cache_dir(
    "D:/ilostat_cache",
)

Dataset-specific cached resources are versioned using the ILOSTAT last.update timestamp.

When the current version is already cached, it can be reused without downloading the resource again.

When a newer version is downloaded, obsolete cached versions of the same resource are removed automatically.

Use refresh=True to force a refresh of the relevant metadata before checking cached resources:

df = ilostat.get_df(
    "UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_NB_A",
    refresh=True,
)

The option can also be used with a custom cache:

df = ilostat.get_df(
    "UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_NB_A",
    cache_dir="D:/ilostat_cache",
    refresh=True,
)

The SDMX Dataflow catalogue exposes the ILOSTAT LAST_UPDATE value:

dataflows = ilostat.get_sdmx(
    resource="dataflow",
)

The result includes:

DATAFLOW_ID
DATAFLOW_NAME
LAST_UPDATE

This can be used to identify datasets that have changed since a previous retrieval.

Cached files are not automatically deleted when a Python session ends.

Clear the default cache with:

ilostat.clean_cache()

Clear a custom cache with:

ilostat.clean_cache(
    cache_dir="D:/ilostat_cache",
)

clean_cache() removes cached files and empty subdirectories while preserving the cache root directory.