pycopg Documentation¶

High-level Python API for PostgreSQL/PostGIS/TimescaleDB built on psycopg 3.

Contents

Features¶

Simple API: Pythonic interface for common database operations
Sync & Async: Full async/await support with AsyncDatabase
Full Async Parity: Every Database method available in AsyncDatabase (NEW in 0.3.0)
Resilience: Automatic retry with exponential backoff for transient connection errors (NEW in 0.3.0)
Statement Timeout: Configurable query timeout protection (NEW in 0.3.0)
Session Mode: Connection reuse for batch operations with db.session()
High-Performance Inserts: insert_batch() and copy_insert() for bulk operations
Connection Pooling: Built-in pooling with PooledDatabase and AsyncPooledDatabase
DataFrame Integration: Seamless pandas/geopandas support
Migrations: Simple SQL-based migration system
PostGIS: Spatial data operations with GeoDataFrame support
TimescaleDB: Hypertables, compression, and retention policies
Role Management: Create roles, grant/revoke privileges
Backup/Restore: pg_dump/pg_restore and CSV import/export
Type Safety: Full type hints for IDE support

Quick Example¶

from pycopg import Database

# Connect from environment
db = Database.from_env()

# Explore
print(db.list_schemas())
print(db.list_tables("public"))
print(db.size())

# Query
users = db.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = %s", [True])

# High-performance batch insert
db.insert_batch("users", [
    {"name": "Alice", "email": "alice@example.com"},
    {"name": "Bob", "email": "bob@example.com"},
])

# Session mode for connection reuse
with db.session() as session:
    session.execute("SELECT 1")
    session.insert_batch("events", rows)

# Close
db.close()

Installation¶

pip install pycopg

# With optional dependencies
pip install pycopg[dotenv]  # .env file support
pip install pycopg[geo]     # PostGIS/geopandas
pip install pycopg[all]     # All optional deps

License¶

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.