I am using Flask server with python.

I have an integer pics_to_show. Every time a request is recieved, the user recieves pics_to_show integer. And pics_to_show gets decremented by 1. pics_to_show is an integer that`s shared with all website users. I could make a database to save it, but I want something simpler and flexible. Is there any OTHER way to save this integer.

I made a class that saves such variables in a JSON file.

class GlobalSate:
    def __init__(self, path_to_file):
        self.path = path_to_file
        try:
            open(path_to_file)
        except FileNotFoundError:
            f = open(path_to_file, 'x')
            f.write('{}')

    def __getitem__(self, key):
        file = self.load_file()
        data = json.loads(file.read())
        return data[key]

    def __setitem__(self, key, value):
        file = self.load_file()
        data = json.loads(file.read())
        data[key] = value
        json.dump(data, open(self.path, 'w+'), indent=4)

    def load_file(self):
        return open(self.path, 'r+')

The class is over-simplified ofcourse. I initialize an instance in the __init__.py and import it to all routes files (I am using BluePrints).

My apllication is threaded, so this class might not work... Since multiple users are editing the data at the same time. Does anybody have another solution?

Note: The g variable would not work, since data is shared across users not requests.

Also, what if I want to increment such variable every week? Would it be thread safe to run a seperate python script to keep track of the date, or check the date on each request to the server?