.. _pooling_toplevel:

Connection Pooling
==================

.. module:: sqlalchemy.pool

The establishment of a
database connection is typically a somewhat expensive operation, and
applications need a way to get at database connections repeatedly
with minimal overhead.  Particularly for
server-side web applications, a connection pool is the standard way to
maintain a "pool" of active database connections in memory which are
reused across requests.

SQLAlchemy includes several connection pool implementations 
which integrate with the :class:`.Engine`.  They can also be used
directly for applications that want to add pooling to an otherwise
plain DBAPI approach.

Connection Pool Configuration
-----------------------------

The :class:`~sqlalchemy.engine.Engine` returned by the
:func:`~sqlalchemy.create_engine` function in most cases has a :class:`.QueuePool`
integrated, pre-configured with reasonable pooling defaults.  If
you're reading this section to simply enable pooling- congratulations!
You're already done.

The most common :class:`.QueuePool` tuning parameters can be passed
directly to :func:`~sqlalchemy.create_engine` as keyword arguments:
``pool_size``, ``max_overflow``, ``pool_recycle`` and
``pool_timeout``.  For example::

  engine = create_engine('postgresql://me@localhost/mydb',
                         pool_size=20, max_overflow=0)

In the case of SQLite, the :class:`.SingletonThreadPool` or
:class:`.NullPool` are selected by the dialect to provide
greater compatibility with SQLite's threading and locking
model, as well as to provide a reasonable default behavior
to SQLite "memory" databases, which maintain their entire
dataset within the scope of a single connection.

All SQLAlchemy pool implementations have in common
that none of them "pre create" connections - all implementations wait
until first use before creating a connection.   At that point, if
no additional concurrent checkout requests for more connections 
are made, no additional connections are created.   This is why it's perfectly
fine for :func:`.create_engine` to default to using a :class:`.QueuePool`
of size five without regard to whether or not the application really needs five connections
queued up - the pool would only grow to that size if the application
actually used five connections concurrently, in which case the usage of a 
small pool is an entirely appropriate default behavior.

Switching Pool Implementations
------------------------------

The usual way to use a different kind of pool with :func:`.create_engine`
is to use the ``poolclass`` argument.   This argument accepts a class
imported from the ``sqlalchemy.pool`` module, and handles the details
of building the pool for you.   Common options include specifying
:class:`.QueuePool` with SQLite::

    from sqlalchemy.pool import QueuePool
    engine = create_engine('sqlite:///file.db', poolclass=QueuePool)

Disabling pooling using :class:`.NullPool`::

    from sqlalchemy.pool import NullPool
    engine = create_engine(
              'postgresql+psycopg2://scott:tiger@localhost/test', 
              poolclass=NullPool)

Using a Custom Connection Function
----------------------------------

All :class:`.Pool` classes accept an argument ``creator`` which is 
a callable that creates a new connection.  :func:`.create_engine`
accepts this function to pass onto the pool via an argument of
the same name::

    import sqlalchemy.pool as pool
    import psycopg2

    def getconn():
        c = psycopg2.connect(username='ed', host='127.0.0.1', dbname='test')
        # do things with 'c' to set up
        return c

    engine = create_engine('postgresql+psycopg2://', creator=getconn)

For most "initialize on connection" routines, it's more convenient
to use a :class:`.PoolListener`, so that the usual URL argument to
:func:`.create_engine` is still usable.  ``creator`` is there as
a total last resort for when a DBAPI has some form of ``connect``
that is not at all supported by SQLAlchemy.

Constructing a Pool
------------------------

To use a :class:`.Pool` by itself, the ``creator`` function is
the only argument that's required and is passed first, followed
by any additional options::

    import sqlalchemy.pool as pool
    import psycopg2

    def getconn():
        c = psycopg2.connect(username='ed', host='127.0.0.1', dbname='test')
        return c

    mypool = pool.QueuePool(getconn, max_overflow=10, pool_size=5)

DBAPI connections can then be procured from the pool using the :meth:`.Pool.connect`
function.  The return value of this method is a DBAPI connection that's contained
within a transparent proxy::

    # get a connection
    conn = mypool.connect()

    # use it
    cursor = conn.cursor()
    cursor.execute("select foo")

The purpose of the transparent proxy is to intercept the ``close()`` call,
such that instead of the DBAPI connection being closed, its returned to the 
pool::

    # "close" the connection.  Returns
    # it to the pool.
    conn.close()

The proxy also returns its contained DBAPI connection to the pool 
when it is garbage collected,
though it's not deterministic in Python that this occurs immediately (though
it is typical with cPython).

A particular pre-created :class:`.Pool` can be shared with one or more
engines by passing it to the ``pool`` argument of :func:`.create_engine`::

    e = create_engine('postgresql://', pool=mypool)

Pool Event Listeners
--------------------

Connection pools support an event interface that allows hooks to execute
upon first connect, upon each new connection, and upon checkout and 
checkin of connections.   See :class:`.PoolListener` for details.

API Documentation - Available Pool Implementations
---------------------------------------------------

.. autoclass:: sqlalchemy.pool.Pool

   .. automethod:: __init__
   .. automethod:: connect
   .. automethod:: dispose
   .. automethod:: recreate

.. autoclass:: sqlalchemy.pool.QueuePool
   :show-inheritance:

   .. automethod:: __init__

.. autoclass:: SingletonThreadPool
   :show-inheritance:

   .. automethod:: __init__

.. autoclass:: AssertionPool
   :show-inheritance:

.. autoclass:: NullPool
  :show-inheritance:

.. autoclass:: StaticPool
   :show-inheritance:


Pooling Plain DB-API Connections
--------------------------------

Any :pep:`249` DB-API module can be "proxied" through the connection
pool transparently.  Usage of the DB-API is exactly as before, except
the ``connect()`` method will consult the pool.  Below we illustrate
this with ``psycopg2``::

    import sqlalchemy.pool as pool
    import psycopg2 as psycopg

    psycopg = pool.manage(psycopg)

    # then connect normally
    connection = psycopg.connect(database='test', username='scott',
                                 password='tiger')

This produces a :class:`_DBProxy` object which supports the same
``connect()`` function as the original DB-API module.  Upon
connection, a connection proxy object is returned, which delegates its
calls to a real DB-API connection object.  This connection object is
stored persistently within a connection pool (an instance of
:class:`.Pool`) that corresponds to the exact connection arguments sent
to the ``connect()`` function.

The connection proxy supports all of the methods on the original
connection object, most of which are proxied via ``__getattr__()``.
The ``close()`` method will return the connection to the pool, and the
``cursor()`` method will return a proxied cursor object.  Both the
connection proxy and the cursor proxy will also return the underlying
connection to the pool after they have both been garbage collected,
which is detected via weakref callbacks  (``__del__`` is not used).

Additionally, when connections are returned to the pool, a
``rollback()`` is issued on the connection unconditionally.  This is
to release any locks still held by the connection that may have
resulted from normal activity.

By default, the ``connect()`` method will return the same connection
that is already checked out in the current thread.  This allows a
particular connection to be used in a given thread without needing to
pass it around between functions.  To disable this behavior, specify
``use_threadlocal=False`` to the ``manage()`` function.

.. autofunction:: sqlalchemy.pool.manage

.. autofunction:: sqlalchemy.pool.clear_managers

