linaldb (Python native bindings)

Embedded native Python bindings for LINALDB — a PyO3 extension linking the same synchronous engine the CLI/REPL runs (TensorDb/execute_line, src/engine/db.rs + src/dsl/mod.rs) directly into your Python process. No server, no network — this is the "use it like SQLite" story, as opposed to clients/python (a thin HTTP client for a running linal serve). See ../EMBEDDED_CONTRACT.md for the exact result shapes this module implements.

Published on PyPI as linaldb:

pip install linaldb

Status

Nine releases on PyPI so far, 0.1.0 through 0.1.8 — most bumped purely to pick up a real engine fix (this crate has no code of its own beyond the PyO3 bindings), each found via genuine end-to-end testing against real data in the linal-hub sibling project rather than isolated unit tests. Two of the more severe: 0.1.4 (2026-09-13) fixed EXPLAIN LINEAGE misattributing ancestry across a zero-copy TRANSPOSE (a transposed matrix and its untransposed source could hash identically); 0.1.5 (2026-09-13) fixed a JOIN's SELECT/WHERE/aggregate expressions silently returning the wrong table's value for a qualified column when both sides shared a bare column name — no error, just wrong data. See CHANGELOG.md for the complete version-by-version history.

Usage

import linaldb

db = linaldb.Db()  # persists to ./data by default, exactly like the CLI
db.execute("CREATE DATASET t COLUMNS (id: Int, score: Float)")
db.execute("INSERT INTO t VALUES (1, 0.9), (2, 0.4)")

result = db.execute("SELECT * FROM t WHERE score > 0.5")
print(result.columns, result.rows)   # ExecuteResult
df = result.to_pandas()              # requires the `pandas` extra

db.execute("SAVE DATASET t")
dataset = db.dataset("t")
df = dataset.to_pandas()             # reads data.parquet directly off disk

See examples/digit_classification_embedded.py and the Jupyter notebook examples/digit_classification_embedded.ipynb for a complete real-data walkthrough — the same real UCI handwritten-digits classification workflow clients/python/examples/digit_classification.py runs over HTTP, ported to embedded mode: no linal serve subprocess at all, just an in-process Db(), an in-process classification query, and an independent numpy recomputation from the dataset export, cross-checked against the SQL result.

Build

This crate vendors HDF5 and pulls in arrow/tokio/axum/zarrs as dependencies of the root linal crate (Cargo.toml here has a path dependency on ../..) — the first build compiles all of that, same as building the CLI itself; a .cargo/config.toml here points the build at the repo-root target/ dir to avoid a second full vendor build if you've already built the root crate.

Requires a Rust toolchain (cmake + a C toolchain for HDF5, per the root CLAUDE.md) and maturin:

python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install maturin
maturin develop           # builds the extension, installs it into .venv

If your Python interpreter is newer than PyO3's currently-supported maximum CPython version, set PYO3_USE_ABI3_FORWARD_COMPATIBILITY=1 for the build (PYO3_USE_ABI3_FORWARD_COMPATIBILITY=1 maturin develop) — this repo was built and verified against CPython 3.14 that way.

About

LINALDB is built by Gorigami, a software company based in Colombia, and maintained by Nicolás Balaguera. See the project README and LICENSE for the full picture and licensing terms.

Development

source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
maturin develop
pytest tests/

No live server needed for anything here (that's the whole point of embedded mode) — tests and examples all run against an in-process Db().