sqlrite 0.1.20

Python bindings for SQLRite — a small, embeddable SQLite clone written in Rust.

sqlrite (Python)

Python bindings for SQLRite — a small, embeddable SQLite clone written in Rust. Shape follows PEP 249 / the stdlib sqlite3 module, so most callers can pick it up without reading the docs.

Install

# From PyPI:
pip install sqlrite

# From source in a clone of the repo:
pip install maturin
cd sdk/python
maturin develop --release

Quick tour

import sqlrite

# File-backed or in-memory (use `":memory:"` to match sqlite3 convention).
conn = sqlrite.connect("foo.sqlrite")
# conn = sqlrite.connect(":memory:")

cur = conn.cursor()
cur.execute("CREATE TABLE users (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT, age INTEGER)")
cur.execute("INSERT INTO users (name, age) VALUES ('alice', 30)")
cur.execute("INSERT INTO users (name, age) VALUES ('bob', 25)")

cur.execute("SELECT id, name, age FROM users")
for row in cur:
    print(row)  # (1, 'alice', 30), then (2, 'bob', 25)

# Column metadata (PEP 249 `.description`):
for col in cur.description:
    print(col[0])  # 'id', 'name', 'age'

conn.close()

Transactions

with sqlrite.connect("foo.sqlrite") as conn:
    cur = conn.cursor()
    cur.execute("BEGIN")
    cur.execute("INSERT INTO users (name) VALUES ('carol')")
    if looks_good:
        conn.commit()
    else:
        conn.rollback()
# The context manager automatically commits on clean exit
# and rolls back on exception, then closes the connection.

Read-only access

conn = sqlrite.connect_read_only("foo.sqlrite")
# Any write raises sqlrite.SQLRiteError. Multiple read-only
# connections on the same file coexist (shared OS lock).

Vector columns + KNN (Phase 7a–7d)

The engine ships with a fixed-dimension VECTOR(N) storage class and three distance functions (vec_distance_l2, vec_distance_cosine, vec_distance_dot). Plain cursor.execute(...) is all you need from Python — values come back as Python lists of floats.

cur.execute("CREATE TABLE docs (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, embedding VECTOR(384))")
cur.execute("INSERT INTO docs (id, embedding) VALUES (1, [0.1, 0.2, ..., 0.0])")  # 384 floats
cur.execute("""
    SELECT id FROM docs
     ORDER BY vec_distance_l2(embedding, [0.1, 0.2, ..., 0.0])
     LIMIT 10
""")
for row in cur:
    print(row)

For larger collections, build an HNSW index — the executor will use it automatically when the WHERE/ORDER BY shape matches:

cur.execute("CREATE INDEX idx_docs_emb ON docs USING hnsw (embedding)")

JSON columns (Phase 7e)

JSON (and JSONB as an alias) columns store text, validated at INSERT/UPDATE time. Read with json_extract / json_type / json_array_length / json_object_keys. Path subset: $, .key, [N], chained.

cur.execute("CREATE TABLE events (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, payload JSON)")
cur.execute(
    "INSERT INTO events (payload) VALUES "
    "('{\"user\": {\"name\": \"alice\"}, \"score\": 42}')"
)
cur.execute(
    "SELECT json_extract(payload, '$.user.name'), json_type(payload, '$.score') FROM events"
)
print(cur.fetchall())  # [('alice', 'integer')]

json_object_keys returns a JSON-array text rather than a table-valued result (set-returning functions aren't supported yet).

Natural-language → SQL (Phase 7g — coming soon)

The Phase 7g.2-7g.8 wave adds a Python-native conn.ask() that wraps the new sqlrite-ask Rust crate via PyO3. Today it's available only from Rust (sqlrite-ask on crates.io); the Python wrapper lands in 7g.4 and will look like:

# 7g.4 preview — not yet released
import sqlrite

conn = sqlrite.connect("foo.sqlrite")
cfg  = sqlrite.AskConfig.from_env()           # SQLRITE_LLM_API_KEY etc.
resp = conn.ask("How many users are over 30?", cfg)
print(resp.sql)          # "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users WHERE age > 30"
print(resp.explanation)  # "Counts users over the age threshold."

# Convenience:
rows = conn.ask_run("How many users are over 30?", cfg).fetchall()

API surface

Function / Method	Purpose
sqlrite.connect(db)	Open or create a file-backed DB (or :memory:)
sqlrite.connect_read_only(db)	Open an existing file with a shared lock
Connection.cursor()	Returns a new Cursor
Connection.execute(sql, ...)	Shortcut for cursor().execute(...)
Connection.commit() / .rollback()	Close the current transaction
Connection.close()	Drop the connection (releases OS file lock)
Connection.in_transaction	bool — inside a BEGIN … COMMIT/ROLLBACK
Connection.read_only	bool — opened via connect_read_only
Cursor.execute(sql, params=None)	Run one statement
Cursor.executemany(sql, seq)	DB-API placeholder (params deferred)
Cursor.executescript(sql)	;-separated batch of statements
Cursor.fetchone()	Next row as a tuple, or None
Cursor.fetchmany(size=None)	Up to size more rows as a list of tuples
Cursor.fetchall()	All remaining rows
Cursor.description	PEP 249 7-tuples per column (name + Nones)
Cursor.rowcount	-1 (not tracked yet — returns as PEP 249 says)
iter(cursor)	for row in cursor: …
sqlrite.SQLRiteError	All engine failures bubble up as this

Parameter binding

execute(sql, params) accepts None and empty tuples/lists for DB-API compatibility, but any non-empty params raises TypeError with a clear message — the underlying engine doesn't support prepared-statement parameter binding yet (deferred to Phase 5a.2). For now, inline values into the SQL (with manual escaping).

Running the tests

maturin develop
python -m pytest tests/

How this ships

• PyO3 (abi3-py38) for the Rust-Python boundary — one wheel works on every CPython 3.8+ release, no per-version rebuild.
• maturin as the build backend, emitting standard .whl files that pip can install directly.
• Phase 6f's CI publishes abi3-py38 wheels to PyPI for manylinux x86_64/aarch64, macOS aarch64, and Windows x86_64 (plus an sdist) on every release. OIDC trusted publishing — no long-lived PyPI token in the repo.

Status

Phase 5c MVP: ✅ — basic CRUD, transactions, context managers, read-only mode, iteration. Parameter binding, CursorRow namedtuples, and type converters (datetime, Decimal) are natural follow-ups.