clickhouse-rowbinary 0.4.0

Fast ClickHouse RowBinary format encoder/decoder

clickhouse-rowbinary

Fast, streaming encoder/decoder for ClickHouse RowBinary format. Built with Rust for maximum performance.

Installation

pip install clickhouse-rowbinary

Quick Start

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, RowBinaryWriter, RowBinaryReader

# Define schema matching your ClickHouse table
schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([
    ("id", "UInt32"),
    ("name", "String"),
    ("score", "Nullable(Float64)"),
])

# Write rows to RowBinary format
writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema)
writer.write_row({"id": 1, "name": b"Alice", "score": 95.5})
writer.write_row({"id": 2, "name": b"Bob", "score": None})
data = writer.take()

# Read rows back
reader = RowBinaryReader(data, schema)
for row in reader:
    print(f"ID: {row['id']}, Name: {row['name'].decode()}, Score: {row['score']}")

Features

• All ClickHouse types: Integers (8-256 bit), floats, strings, dates, UUIDs, IPs, decimals, enums, and composite types
• Three format variants: RowBinary, RowBinaryWithNames, RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes
• Streaming I/O: Process large datasets without loading everything into memory
• Compressed files: Read and write Zstd-compressed files with random access via SeekableReader and SeekableWriter
• File support: Read directly from files with RowBinaryReader.from_file()
• Type safety: Full type stubs for IDE autocomplete and type checking
• Fast: Rust-powered encoding/decoding with GIL release for multi-threaded workloads

Supported Types

from clickhouse_rowbinary import SUPPORTED_TYPES

# View all supported types and their Python equivalents
for ch_type, py_type in SUPPORTED_TYPES.items():
    print(f"{ch_type}: {py_type}")

ClickHouse Type	Python Type
UInt8..UInt256, Int8..Int256	int
Float32, Float64	float
Bool	bool
String	bytes (default) or str
FixedString(N)	bytes
Date, Date32	datetime.date
DateTime, DateTime64	datetime.datetime
UUID	uuid.UUID
IPv4, IPv6	ipaddress.IPv4Address, ipaddress.IPv6Address
Decimal32/64/128/256(S)	decimal.Decimal
Enum8, Enum16	str (variant name)
Nullable(T)	T | None
Array(T)	list
Map(K, V)	dict
Tuple(T1, T2, ...)	tuple
LowCardinality(T)	same as T

Writing Data

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, RowBinaryWriter

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([
    ("id", "UInt32"),
    ("tags", "Array(String)"),
    ("metadata", "Map(String, Int32)"),
])

writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema)

# Write with dict (most readable)
writer.write_row({
    "id": 1,
    "tags": [b"python", b"rust"],
    "metadata": {b"views": 100, b"likes": 42},
})

# Write with tuple (faster, schema order)
writer.write_row((2, [b"database"], {b"views": 50}))

# Write multiple rows from iterator
writer.write_rows(generate_rows())

# Get the encoded bytes
data = writer.take()

Reading Data

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, RowBinaryReader

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([("id", "UInt32"), ("name", "String")])

# From bytes
reader = RowBinaryReader(data, schema)
for row in reader:
    print(row["id"], row["name"])

# From file
reader = RowBinaryReader.from_file("data.bin", schema)

# Read all at once (releases GIL for parallel workloads)
rows = reader.read_all()

# String mode: decode strings as UTF-8 automatically
reader = RowBinaryReader(data, schema, string_mode="str")
for row in reader:
    print(row["name"])  # Returns str instead of bytes

Row Access Patterns

# Dict-style access
value = row["column_name"]
value = row.get("column_name", default_value)

# Index access
value = row[0]  # First column

# Attribute access
value = row.column_name

# Convert to standard types
d = row.as_dict()    # {"id": 1, "name": b"Alice"}
t = row.as_tuple()   # (1, b"Alice")

# Handle UTF-8 with error control
text = row.get_str("name", errors="replace")  # Replace invalid bytes

Format Variants

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Format, RowBinaryWriter

# Standard format (most compact, requires schema on read)
writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema, format=Format.RowBinary)

# With column names (useful for validation)
writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema, format=Format.RowBinaryWithNames)
writer.write_header()  # Required before writing rows

# Self-describing (includes names and types)
writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema, format=Format.RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes)
writer.write_header()

Error Handling

from clickhouse_rowbinary import (
    ClickHouseRowBinaryError,  # Base class
    SchemaError,      # Invalid type string
    ValidationError,  # Data doesn't match schema
    EncodingError,    # Failed to encode value
    DecodingError,    # Failed to decode data
)

try:
    schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([("col", "InvalidType")])
except SchemaError as e:
    print(f"Bad type: {e}")

try:
    writer.write_row({"id": "not_an_int"})
except ValidationError as e:
    print(f"Wrong type: {e}")

Working with ClickHouse

import httpx
from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, RowBinaryWriter, Format

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([
    ("id", "UInt32"),
    ("name", "String"),
])

writer = RowBinaryWriter(schema, format=Format.RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes)
writer.write_header()
writer.write_rows(rows)
data = writer.take()

# Insert via HTTP interface
response = httpx.post(
    "http://localhost:8123/",
    params={"query": "INSERT INTO my_table FORMAT RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes"},
    content=data,
)

Compressed Files (Zstd)

For large datasets, use SeekableWriter and SeekableReader to work with Zstd-compressed files that support random access.

Writing Compressed Files

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, SeekableWriter

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([("id", "UInt64"), ("name", "String")])

with SeekableWriter.create("data.rowbinary.zst", schema) as writer:
    writer.write_header()
    for i in range(1_000_000):
        writer.write_row({"id": i, "name": f"user{i}".encode()})
# Seek table is written automatically on context exit

Reading Compressed Files with Random Access

from clickhouse_rowbinary import Schema, SeekableReader

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([("id", "UInt64"), ("name", "String")])

with SeekableReader.open("data.rowbinary.zst", schema=schema) as reader:
    # Sequential iteration
    for row in reader:
        print(row["id"])

    # Random access - seek to any row instantly
    reader.seek(500_000)
    row = reader.read_current()
    print(f"Row 500k: {row['id']}")

    # Batch reading
    reader.seek(0)
    batch = reader.read_rows(1000)

High-Performance Batch Processing

For maximum throughput, work with raw bytes to avoid decoding overhead:

from clickhouse_rowbinary import (
    Schema, SeekableReader, SeekableWriter, RowBinaryWriter, Format
)
import httpx

schema = Schema.from_clickhouse([("id", "UInt64"), ("name", "String")])
BATCH_SIZE = 100_000

# Read compressed file and insert to ClickHouse in batches
with SeekableReader.open("huge_file.rowbinary.zst", schema=schema) as reader:
    client = httpx.Client()

    while True:
        # Create batch with header
        batch = RowBinaryWriter(schema, format=Format.RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes)
        batch.write_header()

        # Collect raw bytes (no decode/re-encode overhead)
        count = 0
        for _ in range(BATCH_SIZE):
            row_bytes = reader.current_row_bytes()
            if row_bytes is None:
                break
            batch.write_row_bytes(row_bytes)
            count += 1
            try:
                reader.seek_relative(1)
            except Exception:
                break  # End of file

        if count == 0:
            break

        # Send batch to ClickHouse
        client.post(
            "http://localhost:8123/",
            params={"query": "INSERT INTO table FORMAT RowBinaryWithNamesAndTypes"},
            content=batch.take(),
        )
        print(f"Inserted {count} rows")

Copy Between Compressed Files

# Copy rows between compressed files without decoding
with SeekableReader.open("input.zst", schema=schema) as reader:
    with SeekableWriter.create("output.zst", schema) as writer:
        writer.write_header()
        while (row_bytes := reader.current_row_bytes()) is not None:
            writer.write_row_bytes(row_bytes)
            try:
                reader.seek_relative(1)
            except Exception:
                break

API Reference

Classes

• Schema - Defines column names and types
• Column - Single column definition
• RowBinaryWriter - Encodes rows to RowBinary format (in-memory)
• RowBinaryReader - Decodes rows from RowBinary format (in-memory)
• SeekableWriter - Writes Zstd-compressed RowBinary files with seek tables
• SeekableReader - Reads Zstd-compressed RowBinary files with random access
• Row - Decoded row with dict-like access
• Format - Enum of format variants

Exceptions

• ClickHouseRowBinaryError - Base exception
• SchemaError - Invalid type definition
• ValidationError - Data/schema mismatch
• EncodingError - Encoding failure
• DecodingError - Decoding failure

License

MIT