doltlite (Python)

A Python loader for doltlite — Dolt's version control through SQLite's drop-in API.

import doltlite          # one-time bootstrap
import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect("repo.db")
conn.execute("CREATE TABLE t(x INT)")
conn.execute("INSERT INTO t VALUES (1)")
conn.execute("SELECT dolt_commit('-A', '-m', 'init')")

import doltlite makes libdoltlite the active SQLite engine for the current interpreter, so anything that uses the standard sqlite3 module — including SQLAlchemy with sqlite:///... URLs — transparently gains dolt_commit, dolt_branch, dolt_merge, dolt_log, dolt_diff_<table>, and the other Dolt SQL functions and virtual tables.

Install

pip install doltlite

Wheels bundle a precompiled libdoltlite for macOS (arm64) and Linux (x86_64, aarch64). No system-level setup required.

Intel Mac wheels aren't shipped in v0.11.x — GitHub's free-tier macos-13 runners queue for hours and block releases. Intel Mac users should build libdoltlite locally and use the DOLTLITE_LIB path below.

For development against a local checkout of doltlite, point DOLTLITE_LIB at your built library instead:

DOLTLITE_LIB=/path/to/libdoltlite.dylib python3 your_script.py

Requirements

The package piggybacks on Python's stdlib sqlite3, which must load SQLite as a shared extension at runtime. The following Pythons work:

  • Distro / system Python (Linux)
  • Homebrew Python (macOS, Linux)
  • pyenv-built Python
  • Conda Python

These do not work because their _sqlite3 is statically linked into the interpreter:

  • python-build-standalone interpreters — the default for uv python install, mise, and Rye

If you use uv, target one of the supported Pythons explicitly:

uv venv --python /opt/homebrew/bin/python3   # or /usr/bin/python3

How the bootstrap works

Doltlite is a SQLite drop-in: it implements the same sqlite3_* C API and adds Dolt-specific functions and virtual tables on top. To use it from Python, libdoltlite has to be loaded ahead of the system libsqlite3 so its symbols win during the dynamic-link symbol-resolution pass that Python's _sqlite3 module triggers when it's first imported.

The mechanics differ by platform:

Linux

ELF flat-namespace symbol resolution: if libdoltlite is loaded into the process with RTLD_GLOBAL before _sqlite3 is loaded, its sqlite3_* symbols enter the global namespace and the later libsqlite3.so lookup finds them first.

import doltlite does ctypes.CDLL(libdoltlite_path, mode=ctypes.RTLD_GLOBAL) in this case — no re-exec required.

If sqlite3 was already imported before doltlite, that boat has sailed: we fall back to re-execing the interpreter with LD_PRELOAD set, so libdoltlite is loaded at process start.

macOS

macOS uses a two-level namespace: _sqlite3.so has an LC_LOAD_DYLIB command bound to a specific libsqlite3.dylib path (e.g. /opt/homebrew/opt/sqlite/lib/libsqlite3.dylib). Plain dlopen / ctypes.CDLL does not redirect that resolution, and DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES alone doesn't either — the inserted library has to have an install_name (LC_ID_DYLIB) that matches the path _sqlite3.so was linked against.

import doltlite does:

  1. Detect that path via otool -L $(python3 -c 'import _sqlite3; print(_sqlite3.__file__)').
  2. Copy libdoltlite to $TMPDIR/.../libsqlite3.dylib (cached per (lib, mtime, install_name)).
  3. Rewrite the shim's install_name with install_name_tool -id <path>.
  4. Re-exec the interpreter with DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=<shim>.

The two-level lookup then accepts the shim because the install_name matches.

This requires otool and install_name_tool — install Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) if missing.

Re-exec caveats

When a re-exec is required (macOS, or Linux-after-sqlite3-loaded), the bootstrap calls os.execvpe with sys.argv. That means the invocation must name a script file we can replay:

  • ✅ python3 my_script.py
  • ✅ python3 -m my_package
  • ❌ python3 -c "import doltlite; ..." — code string isn't in argv
  • ❌ Interactive REPL / Jupyter — there's no script to re-exec

In the unsupported cases the bootstrap raises DoltliteLoadError with a clear workaround: set DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES (macOS) or LD_PRELOAD (Linux) yourself before starting Python.

API

import doltlite

# Side-effect import does the bootstrap automatically. Subsequent
# imports are no-ops thanks to a process-env marker.

# If you want to bootstrap explicitly (e.g. inside a function):
doltlite.bootstrap()

# Find where the loaded libdoltlite came from:
doltlite.libdoltlite_path()  # absolute path

See also

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.

Project links

Data verified by PyPI on Jul 22, 2026
Data provided by the project maintainers, verified at the time the release was uploaded to PyPI.

Key dates

PyPI data
Data sourced directly from PyPI's database.
  • Released:
Newer release available (0.11.46)

1 maintainer

PyPI data
Data sourced directly from PyPI's database.
Avatar for timsehn from gravatar.com timsehn

Credits

Author: DoltHub

GitHub Statistics

Data verified by PyPI on Jul 22, 2026
The GitHub source repository was provided by the project maintainers and verified by PyPI at the time of upload. Stars, forks, and open issues/PRs are derived from that repository and have not been independently verified.

License

Apache Software License (Apache-2.0)

Requires

Python >=3.9

Tags

dolt doltlite sqlite version-control database

Classifiers

Report project as malware

Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

doltlite-0.11.36.tar.gz (13.1 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distributions

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (7.5 MB view details)

Uploaded Python 3manylinux: glibc 2.17+ x86-64

doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl (6.8 MB view details)

Uploaded Python 3manylinux: glibc 2.17+ ARM64

doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl (1.6 MB view details)

Uploaded Python 3macOS 11.0+ ARM64

File details

Details for the file doltlite-0.11.36.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: doltlite-0.11.36.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 13.1 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for doltlite-0.11.36.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 a879eebd5369d575af51a6397df688dbe83db671db847bff79b3d079c6de71af
MD5 a792aa0ca4b930f172f0578865c13150
BLAKE2b-256 613e23e311e4725f28e18dfc30e39e8d96cf3af6c479c44945ee19b91622d122

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for doltlite-0.11.36.tar.gz:

Publisher: wheels.yml on dolthub/doltlite-python

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 fd98ca998a5d52651caae3dae72c357f042b9f7bb5eca432a8f3448d25562f8b
MD5 bee8d7172e50710f387f152ae6abe82a
BLAKE2b-256 ab60e170839dd68b9386ba0253e50d4368931c371f277be9ec7a7f3e4d3b68fe

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl:

Publisher: wheels.yml on dolthub/doltlite-python

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 18ba9754df52a482f02006bd321afed67b24c3056322060d9c2f21fe60ddc21d
MD5 773a85da93c30d67a0c094405f5ff629
BLAKE2b-256 de67e68d59a8f045e68754b94178c47d7f8515aa83cb460e4388134d7d63a936

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl:

Publisher: wheels.yml on dolthub/doltlite-python

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 6d1352410a941df5ae94b95f8217cb3d9bcfdabca4770cb81cdc93b144f76788
MD5 08b9323ad67d68c706f29ab4dd12b862
BLAKE2b-256 dd84fa27a3b37051ea574a24765380ed4b801d1abd4c20c3a9856e5b9ab704f3

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for doltlite-0.11.36-py3-none-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl:

Publisher: wheels.yml on dolthub/doltlite-python

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Supported by

AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Depot Continuous Integration Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page