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Correct, the values in the dictionaries should be callables 
(usually a function) which take the old value and return the 
new.

That said, the test case would still be useful, because

(1) calling a string should raise a TypeError
(2) making a mistake should not corrupt the database.  
Perhaps the first except clause (which triggers a rollback) 
needs to be a bare except?  I'm guess the same is true of 
some of the other abort() lines...