How do I load a file on initialization in a flask application

Question

I have a big file, let's call it machine_learning_model.hdf5. I am loading it into my application every time a post request endpoint is hit. The pseudocode looks like this:

def post(self):
  model = load_model('./machine_learning_model.hdf5')
  return( model.predict())

However the fact that I am loading the file every time the endpoint is hit causing problems. In general, what is the proper way to load a big file into a flask application on initialization so the individual endpoints can use the code from said file.

Answer 1

You can load it on application startup and bind to a flask application object:

# app.py
app = Flask(__name__)
app.some_model = load_model('./machine_learning_model.hdf5')

# handlers.py
from flask import current_app

def post(self):
    return current_app.some_model.predict()