sqlalchemy-firebird

An external SQLAlchemy dialect for the Firebird database server.

This package targets SQLAlchemy 2.0+ and Firebird 3.0+, using the modern firebird-driver Python DB-API 2.0 driver.

Installation

pip install sqlalchemy-firebird

This installs SQLAlchemy 2.0+ and firebird-driver automatically. Python 3.9 or newer is required.

Connection strings

A SQLAlchemy URL has the shape dialect+driver://username:password@host:port/database. For Firebird:

firebird+firebird://<username>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<database_path>[?charset=UTF8&key=value&...]

Useful query parameters:

• charset — character set used by the database file (Firebird default is UTF8).
• fb_client_library — full path to the Firebird client library (libfbclient.so on Linux, fbclient.dll on Windows). Only needed when using an embedded server or a non-default client install.

Examples

Local server, default port:

[Linux]
firebird+firebird://sysdba:masterkey@localhost///home/me/databases/my_project.fdb

[Windows]
firebird+firebird://sysdba:masterkey@localhost/c:/databases/my_project.fdb

Remote server on port 3040 with explicit charset and client library:

[Linux]
firebird+firebird://sysdba:masterkey@example.com:3040///srv/databases/my_project.fdb?charset=UTF8&fb_client_library=/opt/firebird/lib/libfbclient.so

[Windows]
firebird+firebird://sysdba:masterkey@example.com:3040/c:/databases/my_project.fdb?charset=UTF8&fb_client_library=c:/firebird/fbclient.dll

Embedded server:

[Linux]
firebird+firebird://sysdba@///home/me/databases/my_project.fdb?charset=UTF8&fb_client_library=/opt/firebird/lib/libfbclient.so

[Windows]
firebird+firebird://sysdba@/c:/databases/my_project.fdb?charset=UTF8&fb_client_library=c:/firebird/fbclient.dll

Usage

from sqlalchemy import create_engine

db_uri = "firebird+firebird://sysdba@/c:/databases/my_project.fdb?charset=UTF8&fb_client_library=c:/firebird/fbclient.dll"
engine = create_engine(db_uri, echo=True)

# Force the engine to connect, surfacing any URL or driver issues immediately.
with engine.begin():
    pass

Code of Conduct

This project follows the SQLAlchemy Code of Conduct.

License

Distributed under the MIT license.