Frequently Asked Questions

Here are a few gotchas you may encounter using psycopg2. Feel free to suggest new entries!

Problems with transactions handling

Why does psycopg2 leave database sessions “idle in transaction”?

Psycopg normally starts a new transaction the first time a query is executed, e.g. calling cursor.execute(), even if the command is a SELECT. The transaction is not closed until an explicit commit() or rollback().

If you are writing a long-living program, you should probably ensure to call one of the transaction closing methods before leaving the connection unused for a long time (which may also be a few seconds, depending on the concurrency level in your database). Alternatively you can use a connection in autocommit mode to avoid a new transaction to be started at the first command.

I receive the error current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction block and can’t do anything else!

There was a problem in the previous command to the database, which resulted in an error. The database will not recover automatically from this condition: you must run a rollback() before sending new commands to the session (if this seems too harsh, remember that PostgreSQL supports nested transactions using the SAVEPOINT command).

Why do I get the error current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction block when I use multiprocessing (or any other forking system) and not when use threading?

Psycopg’s connections can’t be shared across processes (but are thread safe). If you are forking the Python process ensure to create a new connection in each forked child. See Thread and process safety for further informations.

Problems with type conversions

Why does cursor.execute() raise the exception can’t adapt?

Psycopg converts Python objects in a SQL string representation by looking at the object class. The exception is raised when you are trying to pass as query parameter an object for which there is no adapter registered for its class. See Adapting new Python types to SQL syntax for informations.

I can’t pass an integer or a float parameter to my query: it says a number is required, but it is a number!

In your query string, you always have to use %s placeholders, event when passing a number. All Python objects are converted by Psycopg in their SQL representation, so they get passed to the query as strings. See Passing parameters to SQL queries.

>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO numbers VALUES (%d)", (42,)) # WRONG
>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO numbers VALUES (%s)", (42,)) # correct

I try to execute a query but it fails with the error not all arguments converted during string formatting (or object does not support indexing). Why?

Psycopg always require positional arguments to be passed as a sequence, even when the query takes a single parameter. And remember that to make a single item tuple in Python you need a comma! See Passing parameters to SQL queries.

>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO foo VALUES (%s)", "bar")    # WRONG
>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO foo VALUES (%s)", ("bar"))  # WRONG
>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO foo VALUES (%s)", ("bar",)) # correct
>>> cur.execute("INSERT INTO foo VALUES (%s)", ["bar"])  # correct

My database is Unicode, but I receive all the strings as UTF-8 str. Can I receive unicode objects instead?

The following magic formula will do the trick:

psycopg2.extensions.register_type(psycopg2.extensions.UNICODE)
psycopg2.extensions.register_type(psycopg2.extensions.UNICODEARRAY)

See Unicode handling for the gory details.

Psycopg converts decimal/numeric database types into Python Decimal objects. Can I have float instead?

You can register a customized adapter for PostgreSQL decimal type:

DEC2FLOAT = psycopg2.extensions.new_type(
    psycopg2.extensions.DECIMAL.values,
    'DEC2FLOAT',
    lambda value, curs: float(value) if value is not None else None)
psycopg2.extensions.register_type(DEC2FLOAT)

See Type casting of SQL types into Python objects to read the relevant documentation. If you find psycopg2.extensions.DECIMAL not avalable, use psycopg2._psycopg.DECIMAL instead.

Best practices

When should I save and re-use a cursor as opposed to creating a new one as needed?

Cursors are lightweight objects and creating lots of them should not pose any kind of problem. But note that cursors used to fetch result sets will cache the data and use memory in proportion to the result set size. Our suggestion is to almost always create a new cursor and dispose old ones as soon as the data is not required anymore (call close() on them.) The only exception are tight loops where one usually use the same cursor for a whole bunch of INSERTs or UPDATEs.

When should I save and re-use a connection as opposed to creating a new one as needed?

Creating a connection can be slow (think of SSL over TCP) so the best practice is to create a single connection and keep it open as long as required. It is also good practice to rollback or commit frequently (even after a single SELECT statement) to make sure the backend is never left “idle in transaction”. See also psycopg2.pool for lightweight connection pooling.

What are the advantages or disadvantages of using named cursors?

The only disadvantages is that they use up resources on the server and that there is a little overhead because a at least two queries (one to create the cursor and one to fetch the initial result set) are issued to the backend. The advantage is that data is fetched one chunk at a time: using small fetchmany() values it is possible to use very little memory on the client and to skip or discard parts of the result set.

Problems compiling Psycopg from source

I can’t compile psycopg2: the compiler says error: Python.h: No such file or directory. What am I missing?

You need to install a Python development package: it is usually called python-dev.

I can’t compile psycopg2: the compiler says error: libpq-fe.h: No such file or directory. What am I missing?

You need to install the development version of the libpq: the package is usually called libpq-dev.