.. currentmodule:: psycopg Cursor classes ============== The `Cursor` and `AsyncCursor` classes are the main objects to send commands to a PostgreSQL database session. They are normally created by the connection's `~Connection.cursor()` method. Using the `!name` parameter on `!cursor()` will create a `ServerCursor` or `AsyncServerCursor`, which can be used to retrieve partial results from a database. Other cursor classes can be created by directly instantiating them, or can be set as `Connection.cursor_factory` to require them on `!cursor()` call. This page describe the details of the `!Cursor` class interface. Please refer to :ref:`cursor-types` for general information about the different types of cursors available in Psycopg. The `!Cursor` class ------------------- .. autoclass:: Cursor This class implements a `DBAPI-compliant interface`__. It is what the classic `Connection.cursor()` method returns. `AsyncConnection.cursor()` will create instead `AsyncCursor` objects, which have the same set of method but expose an `asyncio` interface and require `!async` and `!await` keywords to operate. .. __: dbapi-cursor_ .. _dbapi-cursor: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0249/#cursor-objects Cursors behave as context managers: on block exit they are closed and further operation will not be possible. Closing a cursor will not terminate a transaction or a session though. .. attribute:: connection :type: Connection The connection this cursor is using. .. automethod:: close .. note:: You can use:: with conn.cursor() as cur: ... to close the cursor automatically when the block is exited. See :ref:`usage`. .. autoattribute:: closed .. rubric:: Methods to send commands .. automethod:: execute :param query: The query to execute. :type query: `!str`, `!bytes`, `sql.SQL`, or `sql.Composed` :param params: The parameters to pass to the query, if any. :type params: Sequence or Mapping :param prepare: Force (`!True`) or disallow (`!False`) preparation of the query. By default (`!None`) prepare automatically. See :ref:`prepared-statements`. :param binary: Specify whether the server should return data in binary format (`!True`) or in text format (`!False`). By default (`!None`) return data as requested by the cursor's `~Cursor.format`. Return the cursor itself, so that it will be possible to chain a fetch operation after the call. See :ref:`query-parameters` for all the details about executing queries. .. versionchanged:: 3.1 The `query` argument must be a `~typing.StringLiteral`. If you need to compose a query dynamically, please use `sql.SQL` and related objects. See :pep:`675` for details. .. automethod:: executemany :param query: The query to execute :type query: `!str`, `!bytes`, `sql.SQL`, or `sql.Composed` :param params_seq: The parameters to pass to the query :type params_seq: Sequence of Sequences or Mappings :param returning: If `!True`, fetch the results of the queries executed :type returning: `!bool` This is more efficient than performing separate queries, but in case of several :sql:`INSERT` (and with some SQL creativity for massive :sql:`UPDATE` too) you may consider using `copy()`. If the queries return data you want to read (e.g. when executing an :sql:`INSERT ... RETURNING` or a :sql:`SELECT` with a side-effect), you can specify `!returning=True`. This is equivalent of calling `~Cursor.execute()` as many times as the number of items in `!params_seq`, and to store all the results in the cursor's state. .. note:: Using the usual `~Cursor.fetchone()`, `~Cursor.fetchall()`, you will be able to read the records returned *by the first query executed only*. In order to read the results of the following queries you can call `~Cursor.nextset()` to move to the following result set. A typical use case for `!executemany(returning=True)` might be to insert a bunch of records and to retrieve the primary keys inserted, taken from a PostgreSQL sequence. In order to do so, you may execute a query such as :sql:`INSERT INTO table VALUES (...) RETURNING id`. Because every :sql:`INSERT` is guaranteed to insert exactly a single record, you can obtain the list of the new ids using a pattern such as:: cur.executemany(query, records) ids = [] while True: ids.append(cur.fetchone()[0]) if not cur.nextset(): break .. warning:: More explicitly, `!fetchall()` alone will not return all the values returned! You must iterate on the results using `!nextset()`. If `!returning=False`, the value of `rowcount` is set to the cumulated number of rows affected by queries. If `!returning=True`, `!rowcount` is set to the number of rows in the current result set (i.e. the first one, until `nextset()` gets called). See :ref:`query-parameters` for all the details about executing queries. .. versionchanged:: 3.1 - Added `!returning` parameter to receive query results. - Performance optimised by making use of the pipeline mode, when using libpq 14 or newer. .. automethod:: copy :param statement: The copy operation to execute :type statement: `!str`, `!bytes`, `sql.SQL`, or `sql.Composed` :param params: The parameters to pass to the statement, if any. :type params: Sequence or Mapping .. note:: The method must be called with:: with cursor.copy() as copy: ... See :ref:`copy` for information about :sql:`COPY`. .. versionchanged:: 3.1 Added parameters support. .. automethod:: stream This command is similar to execute + iter; however it supports endless data streams. The feature is not available in PostgreSQL, but some implementations exist: Materialize `SUBSCRIBE`__ and CockroachDB `CHANGEFEED`__ for instance. The feature, and the API supporting it, are still experimental. Beware... 👀 .. __: https://materialize.com/docs/sql/subscribe/ .. __: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/changefeed-for.html The parameters are the same of `execute()`. .. warning:: Failing to consume the iterator entirely will result in a connection left in `~psycopg.ConnectionInfo.transaction_status` `~pq.TransactionStatus.ACTIVE` state: this connection will refuse to receive further commands (with a message such as *another command is already in progress*). If there is a chance that the generator is not consumed entirely, in order to restore the connection to a working state you can call `~generator.close` on the generator object returned by `!stream()`. The `contextlib.closing` function might be particularly useful to make sure that `!close()` is called: .. code:: with closing(cur.stream("select generate_series(1, 10000)")) as gen: for rec in gen: something(rec) # might fail Without calling `!close()`, in case of error, the connection will be `!ACTIVE` and unusable. If `!close()` is called, the connection might be `!INTRANS` or `!INERROR`, depending on whether the server managed to send the entire resultset to the client. An autocommit connection will be `!IDLE` instead. .. attribute:: format The format of the data returned by the queries. It can be selected initially e.g. specifying `Connection.cursor`\ `!(binary=True)` and changed during the cursor's lifetime. It is also possible to override the value for single queries, e.g. specifying `execute`\ `!(binary=True)`. :type: `pq.Format` :default: `~pq.Format.TEXT` .. seealso:: :ref:`binary-data` .. rubric:: Methods to retrieve results Fetch methods are only available if the last operation produced results, e.g. a :sql:`SELECT` or a command with :sql:`RETURNING`. They will raise an exception if used with operations that don't return result, such as an :sql:`INSERT` with no :sql:`RETURNING` or an :sql:`ALTER TABLE`. .. note:: Cursors are iterable objects, so just using the:: for record in cursor: ... syntax will iterate on the records in the current recordset. .. autoattribute:: row_factory The property affects the objects returned by the `fetchone()`, `fetchmany()`, `fetchall()` methods. The default (`~psycopg.rows.tuple_row`) returns a tuple for each record fetched. See :ref:`row-factories` for details. .. automethod:: fetchone .. automethod:: fetchmany .. automethod:: fetchall .. automethod:: nextset .. automethod:: scroll .. attribute:: pgresult :type: Optional[psycopg.pq.PGresult] The result returned by the last query and currently exposed by the cursor, if available, else `!None`. It can be used to obtain low level info about the last query result and to access to features not currently wrapped by Psycopg. .. rubric:: Information about the data .. autoattribute:: description .. autoattribute:: statusmessage This is the status tag you typically see in :program:`psql` after a successful command, such as ``CREATE TABLE`` or ``UPDATE 42``. .. autoattribute:: rowcount From `executemany()`, unless called with `!returning=True`, this is the cumulated number of rows affected by executed commands. .. autoattribute:: rownumber .. attribute:: _query An helper object used to convert queries and parameters before sending them to PostgreSQL. .. note:: This attribute is exposed because it might be helpful to debug problems when the communication between Python and PostgreSQL doesn't work as expected. For this reason, the attribute is available when a query fails too. .. warning:: You shouldn't consider it part of the public interface of the object: it might change without warnings. Except this warning, I guess. If you would like to build reliable features using this object, please get in touch so we can try and design an useful interface for it. Among the properties currently exposed by this object: - `!query` (`!bytes`): the query effectively sent to PostgreSQL. It will have Python placeholders (``%s``\-style) replaced with PostgreSQL ones (``$1``, ``$2``\-style). - `!params` (sequence of `!bytes`): the parameters passed to PostgreSQL, adapted to the database format. - `!types` (sequence of `!int`): the OID of the parameters passed to PostgreSQL. - `!formats` (sequence of `pq.Format`): whether the parameter format is text or binary. The `!RawCursor` class ---------------------- .. seealso:: See :ref:`raw-query-cursors` for details. .. autoclass:: RawCursor This `Cursor` subclass has the same interface of the parent class but supports placeholders in PostgreSQL format (``$1``, ``$2``...) rather than in Python format (``%s``). Only positional parameters are supported. .. versionadded:: 3.2 The `!ClientCursor` class ------------------------- .. seealso:: See :ref:`client-side-binding-cursors` for details. .. autoclass:: ClientCursor This `Cursor` subclass has exactly the same interface of its parent class, but, instead of sending query and parameters separately to the server, it merges them on the client and sends them as a non-parametric query on the server. This allows, for instance, to execute parametrized data definition statements and other :ref:`problematic queries `. .. versionadded:: 3.1 .. automethod:: mogrify :param query: The query to execute. :type query: `!str`, `!bytes`, `sql.SQL`, or `sql.Composed` :param params: The parameters to pass to the query, if any. :type params: Sequence or Mapping The `!ServerCursor` class -------------------------- .. seealso:: See :ref:`server-side-cursors` for details. .. autoclass:: ServerCursor This class also implements a `DBAPI-compliant interface`__. It is created by `Connection.cursor()` specifying the `!name` parameter. Using this object results in the creation of an equivalent PostgreSQL cursor in the server. DBAPI-extension methods (such as `~Cursor.copy()` or `~Cursor.stream()`) are not implemented on this object: use a normal `Cursor` instead. .. __: dbapi-cursor_ Most attribute and methods behave exactly like in `Cursor`, here are documented the differences: .. autoattribute:: name .. autoattribute:: scrollable .. seealso:: The PostgreSQL DECLARE_ statement documentation for the description of :sql:`[NO] SCROLL`. .. autoattribute:: withhold .. seealso:: The PostgreSQL DECLARE_ statement documentation for the description of :sql:`{WITH|WITHOUT} HOLD`. .. _DECLARE: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-declare.html .. automethod:: close .. warning:: Closing a server-side cursor is more important than closing a client-side one because it also releases the resources on the server, which otherwise might remain allocated until the end of the session (memory, locks). Using the pattern:: with conn.cursor(): ... is especially useful so that the cursor is closed at the end of the block. .. automethod:: execute :param query: The query to execute. :type query: `!str`, `!bytes`, `sql.SQL`, or `sql.Composed` :param params: The parameters to pass to the query, if any. :type params: Sequence or Mapping :param binary: Specify whether the server should return data in binary format (`!True`) or in text format (`!False`). By default (`!None`) return data as requested by the cursor's `~Cursor.format`. Create a server cursor with given `!name` and the `!query` in argument. If using :sql:`DECLARE` is not appropriate (for instance because the cursor is returned by calling a stored procedure) you can avoid to use `!execute()`, crete the cursor in other ways, and use directly the `!fetch*()` methods instead. See :ref:`cursor-steal` for an example. Using `!execute()` more than once will close the previous cursor and open a new one with the same name. .. automethod:: executemany .. automethod:: fetchone .. automethod:: fetchmany .. automethod:: fetchall These methods use the FETCH_ SQL statement to retrieve some of the records from the cursor's current position. .. _FETCH: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-fetch.html .. note:: You can also iterate on the cursor to read its result one at time with:: for record in cur: ... In this case, the records are not fetched one at time from the server but they are retrieved in batches of `itersize` to reduce the number of server roundtrips. .. autoattribute:: itersize Number of records to fetch at time when iterating on the cursor. The default is 100. .. automethod:: scroll This method uses the MOVE_ SQL statement to move the current position in the server-side cursor, which will affect following `!fetch*()` operations. If you need to scroll backwards you should probably call `~Connection.cursor()` using `scrollable=True`. Note that PostgreSQL doesn't provide a reliable way to report when a cursor moves out of bound, so the method might not raise `!IndexError` when it happens, but it might rather stop at the cursor boundary. .. _MOVE: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-fetch.html Async cursor classes -------------------- Every `Cursor` class has an equivalent `!Async` version exposing the same semantic with an `!async` interface. The main interface is described in `AsyncCursor`. .. autoclass:: AsyncCursor This class implements a DBAPI-inspired interface, with all the blocking methods implemented as coroutines. Unless specified otherwise, non-blocking methods are shared with the `Cursor` class. The following methods have the same behaviour of the matching `!Cursor` methods, but should be called using the `await` keyword. .. attribute:: connection :type: AsyncConnection .. automethod:: close .. note:: You can use:: async with conn.cursor(): ... to close the cursor automatically when the block is exited. .. automethod:: execute .. automethod:: executemany .. automethod:: copy .. note:: The method must be called with:: async with cursor.copy() as copy: ... .. automethod:: stream .. note:: The method must be called with:: async for record in cursor.stream(query): ... .. automethod:: fetchone .. automethod:: fetchmany .. automethod:: fetchall .. automethod:: scroll .. note:: You can also use:: async for record in cursor: ... to iterate on the async cursor results. .. autoclass:: AsyncRawCursor This class is the `!async` equivalent of `RawCursor`. The differences w.r.t. the sync counterpart are the same described in `AsyncCursor`. .. versionadded:: 3.2 .. autoclass:: AsyncClientCursor This class is the `!async` equivalent of `ClientCursor`. The differences w.r.t. the sync counterpart are the same described in `AsyncCursor`. .. versionadded:: 3.1 .. autoclass:: AsyncServerCursor This class implements a DBAPI-inspired interface as the `AsyncCursor` does, but wraps a server-side cursor like the `ServerCursor` class. It is created by `AsyncConnection.cursor()` specifying the `!name` parameter. The following are the methods exposing a different (async) interface from the `ServerCursor` counterpart, but sharing the same semantics. .. automethod:: close .. note:: You can close the cursor automatically using:: async with conn.cursor("name") as cursor: ... .. automethod:: execute .. automethod:: executemany .. automethod:: fetchone .. automethod:: fetchmany .. automethod:: fetchall .. note:: You can also iterate on the cursor using:: async for record in cur: ... .. automethod:: scroll