This API has been defined to encourage similarity between the Python modules that are used to access databases. By doing this, we hope to achieve a consistency leading to more easily understood modules, code that is generally more portable across databases, and a broader reach of database connectivity from Python.

Comments and questions about this specification may be directed to the SIG for Database Interfacing with Python.

For more information on database interfacing with Python and available packages see the Database Topic Guide.

This document describes the Python Database API Specification 2.0 and a set of common optional extensions. The previous version 1.0 version is still available as reference, in PEP 248. Package writers are encouraged to use this version of the specification as basis for new interfaces.

This PostgreSQL Python section shows you how to work with the PostgreSQL database using the Python programming language.

Python has various database drivers for PostgreSQL. Currently, the psycopg is the most popular PostgreSQL database adapter for the Python language. The psycopg fully implements the Python DB-API 2.0 specification.

The current version of the psycopg is 2 or psycopg2. The psycopg2 database adapter implemented in C as a libpq wrapper resulting in both fast and secure. The psycopg2 provides many useful features such as client-side and server-side cursors, asynchronous notification and communication, COPY command support, etc.

Besides, the psycopg2 driver supports many Python types out-of-the-box. The psycopg2 matches Python objects to the PostgreSQL data types, e.g., list to the array, tuples to records, and dictionary to hstore. If you want to customize and extend the type adaption, you can use a flexible object adaption system.