Data structure for maintaining tabular data in memory?

Question

My scenario is as follows: I have a table of data (handful of fields, less than a hundred rows) that I use extensively in my program. I also need this data to be persistent,

Answer 1

Have a Table class whose rows is a list of dict or better row objects

In table do not directly add rows but have a method which update few lookup maps e.g. for name if you are not adding rows in order or id are not consecutive you can have idMap too e.g.

class Table(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.rows =  []# list of row objects, we assume if order of id
        self.nameMap = {} # for faster direct lookup for row by name

    def addRow(self, row):
        self.rows.append(row)
        self.nameMap[row['name']] = row

    def getRow(self, name):
        return self.nameMap[name]


table = Table()
table.addRow({'ID':1,'name':'a'})