SQLAlchemy Dialect for EXASOL DB

Getting Started with SQLAlchemy-Exasol

SQLAlchemy-Exasol supports multiple dialects, primarily differentiated by whether they are ODBC or Websocket based.

Choosing a Dialect

We recommend using the Websocket-based dialect due to its simplicity. ODBC-based dialects demand a thorough understanding of (Unix)ODBC, and the setup is considerably more complex.

System Requirements

• Python
• An Exasol DB (e.g. docker-db or a cloud instance)

Setting Up Your Python Project

Install SQLAlchemy-Exasol:

$ pip install sqlalchemy-exasol

pip install "sqlalchemy-exasol[pydobc]"
pip install "sqlalchemy-exasol[turbodbc]"

Using SQLAlchemy with EXASOL DB

Websocket based Dialect:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
url = "exa+websocket://A_USER:A_PASSWORD@192.168.1.2..8:1234/my_schema?CONNECTIONLCALL=en_US.UTF-8"
e = create_engine(url)
r = e.execute("select 42 from dual").fetchall()

Examples:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine

engine = create_engine("exa+websocket://sys:exasol@127.0.0.1:8888")
with engine.connect() as con:
    ...

from sqlalchemy import create_engine

# ATTENTION:
# In terms of security it is NEVER a good idea to turn of certificate validation!!
# In rare cases it may be handy for non-security related reasons.
# That said, if you are not a 100% sure about your scenario, stick with the
# secure defaults.
# In most cases, having a valid certificate and/or configuring the truststore(s)
# appropriately is the best/correct solution.
engine = create_engine("exa+websocket://sys:exasol@127.0.0.1:8888?SSLCertificate=SSL_VERIFY_NONE")
with engine.connect() as con:
    ...

Pyodbc (ODBC based Dialect):

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
url = "exa+pyodbc://A_USER:A_PASSWORD@192.168.1.2..8:1234/my_schema?CONNECTIONLCALL=en_US.UTF-8&driver=EXAODBC"
e = create_engine(url)
r = e.execute("select 42 from dual").fetchall()

Turbodbc (ODBC based Dialect):

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
url = "exa+turbodbc://A_USER:A_PASSWORD@192.168.1.2..8:1234/my_schema?CONNECTIONLCALL=en_US.UTF-8&driver=EXAODBC"
e = create_engine(url)
r = e.execute("select 42 from dual").fetchall()

Features

• SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE statements

General Notes

• Schema name and parameters are optional for the host url
• At least on Linux/Unix systems it has proven valuable to pass 'CONNECTIONLCALL=en_US.UTF-8' as a url parameter. This will make sure that the client process (Python) and the EXASOL driver (UTF-8 internal) know how to interpret code pages correctly.
• Always use all lower-case identifiers for schema, table and column names. SQLAlchemy treats all lower-case identifiers as case-insensitive, the dialect takes care of transforming the identifier into a case-insensitive representation of the specific database (in case of EXASol this is upper-case as for Oracle)
• As of Exasol client driver version 4.1.2 you can pass the flag 'INTTYPESINRESULTSIFPOSSIBLE=y' in the connection string (or configure it in your DSN). This will convert DECIMAL data types to Integer-like data types. Creating integers is a factor three faster in Python than creating Decimals.

Known Issues

• Insert

  • Insert multiple empty rows via prepared statements does not work in all cases

Development & Testing

See developer guide