What is SQLAlchemy

SQLAlchemy is a powerful SQL toolkit and Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) system for Python. It provides a full suite of well-known enterprise-level persistence patterns, designed for efficient and high-performing database access. SQLAlchemy gives Python developers the tools to connect to relational databases, execute SQL queries, and manage the data in a way that is designed to reach optimal performance and maintainability.

Using SQLAlchemy, you can define Python classes that map to your database tables, and interactions with the database can be done via these classes rather than through raw SQL queries. This makes your code cleaner, more maintainable, and allows for easier unit testing.

Here is a simple example of how to use SQLAlchemy to define a table and perform a basic operation:

# First, install SQLAlchemy with pip pip install SQLAlchemy from sqlalchemy import create_engine, Column, Integer, String from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker # Connect to a SQLite database (or create it if it doesn't exist) engine = create_engine('sqlite:///example.db') Base = declarative_base() # Define a User class which will be mapped to the users table class User(Base): __tablename__ = 'users' id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True) name = Column(String) # Create the table in the database Base.metadata.create_all(engine) # Create a new session Session = sessionmaker(bind=engine) session = Session() # Add a new user new_user = User(name='John Doe') session.add(new_user) session.commit()

SQLAlchemy Python ORM SQL toolkit database access relational databases Python classes data management