Why does shelve make such large files?

[Gerrit Holl]

From: Gerrit Holl <gerrit.holl at pobox.com>

Hi,

Is it really necesarry for shelve to make such large files?
Have a look at this:
/tmp> python
Python 1.5.2 (#1, Apr 18 1999, 00:16:12)  [GCC 2.7.2.3] on linux2
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> import shelve
>>> d = shelve.open('database')
>>> d['key'] = 'value'
>>>
/tmp> ls -l database
-rw-rw-r--   1 gerrit   gerrit      16384 Jul  1 21:13 database
                                    ^^^^^

16 KB for only one key!!?
pickle seems to make _much_ smaller files!

Why is this?

regards,
Gerrit.

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