Snowflake SQLAlchemy

Snowflake SQLAlchemy runs on the top of the Snowflake Connector for Python as a dialect to bridge a Snowflake database and SQLAlchemy applications.

Prerequisites

Snowflake Connector for Python

The only requirement for Snowflake SQLAlchemy is the Snowflake Connector for Python; however, the connector does not need to be installed because installing Snowflake SQLAlchemy automatically installs the connector.

Data Analytics and Web Application Frameworks (Optional)

Snowflake SQLAlchemy can be used with Pandas, Jupyter and Pyramid, which provide higher levels of application frameworks for data analytics and web applications. However, building a working environment from scratch is not a trivial task, particularly for novice users. Installing the frameworks requires C compilers and tools, and choosing the right tools and versions is a hurdle that might deter users from using Python applications.

An easier way to build an environment is through Anaconda, which provides a complete, precompiled technology stack for all users, including non-Python experts such as data analysts and students. For Anaconda installation instructions, see the Anaconda install documentation. The Snowflake SQLAlchemy package can then be installed on top of Anaconda using pip.

Installing Snowflake SQLAlchemy

The Snowflake SQLAlchemy package can be installed from the public PyPI repository using pip:

pip install --upgrade snowflake-sqlalchemy

pip automatically installs all required modules, including the Snowflake Connector for Python.

Verifying Your Installation

Create a file (e.g. validate.py) that contains the following Python sample code, which connects to Snowflake and displays the Snowflake version:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

engine = create_engine(
    'snowflake://{user}:{password}@{account}/'.format(
        user='<your_user_login_name>',
        password='<your_password>',
        account='<your_account_name>',
    )
)
try:
    results = engine.execute('select current_version()').fetchone()
    print(results[0])
finally:
    engine.dispose()

Replace your_user_login_name, your_password, and your_account_name with the appropriate values for your Snowflake account and user. For more details, see Connection Parameters in this topic.
Execute the sample code. For example, if you created a file named validate.py:
```
python validate.py
```

The Snowflake version (e.g. 1.48.0) should be displayed.

Parameters and Behavior

As much as possible, Snowflake SQLAlchemy provides compatible functionality for SQLAlchemy applications. For information on using SQLAlchemy, see the SQLAlchemy documentation.

However, Snowflake SQLAlchemy also provides Snowflake-specific parameters and behavior, which are described in the following sections.

Connection Parameters

Snowflake SQLAlchemy uses the following syntax for the connection string used to connect to Snowflake and initiate a session:

'snowflake://<user_login_name>:<password>@<account_name>'

Where:

user_login_name is the login name for your Snowflake user.
password is the password for your Snowflake user.
account_name is the name of your Snowflake account. Your account name is included in the URL used to access your account, e.g. testaccount in testaccount.snowflakecomputing.com.

You can optionally specify the initial database and schema for the Snowflake session by including them at the end of the connection string, separated by /. You can also specify the initial warehouse for the session as a parameter string at the end of the connection string:

'snowflake://<user_login_name>:<password>@<account_name>/<database_name>/<schema_name>?warehouse=<warehouse_name>'

Note

After login, the initial database, schema, and warehouse specified in the connection string can always be changed for the session.

The following example calls the create_engine method with the account name testaccount, user name testuser1, password pass, database db, schema public, and warehouse testwh:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
engine = create_engine(
    'snowflake://testuser1:pass@testaccount/db/public?warehouse=testwh'
)

Other parameters, such as proxy_host (proxy host address for Snowflake) and proxy_port (proxy server port number), can also be specified as a URI parameter or in connect_args parameters. For example:

from sqlalchemy import create_engine
engine = create_engine(
    'snowflake://testuser1:pass@testaccount/db/public?warehouse=testwh',
    connect_args={
        'proxy_host': 'localhost',
        'proxy_port': '3128',
    }
)

For convenience, you can use the snowflake.sqlalchemy.URL method to construct the connection string and connect to the database. The following example constructs the same connection string from the previous example:

from snowflake.sqlalchemy import URL
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

engine = create_engine(URL(
    account = 'testaccount',
    user = 'testuser1',
    password = 'pass',
    database = 'db',
    schema = 'public',
    warehouse = 'testwh',
    proxy_host = 'localhost',
    proxy_port = '3128'
))

Auto-increment Behavior

Auto-incrementing a value requires the Sequence object. Include the Sequence object in the primary key column to automatically increment the value as each new record is inserted. For example:

t = Table('mytable', metadata,
    Column('id', Integer, Sequence('id_seq'), primary_key=True),
    Column(...), ...
)

Object Name Case Handling

Snowflake stores all case-insensitive object names in uppercase text. In contrast, SQLAlchemy considers all lowercase object names to be case-insensitive. Snowflake SQLAlchemy converts the object name case during schema-level communication, i.e. during table and index reflection. If you use uppercase object names, SQLAlchemy assumes they are case-sensitive and surrounds the names with quotes.

Index Support

Snowflake does not utilize indexes, so neither does Snowflake SQLAlchemy.

Numpy Data Type Support

Snowflake SQLAlchemy supports binding and fetching NumPy data types. Binding is always supported. To enable fetching NumPy data types, add numpy=True to the connection parameters.

The following example shows the round trip of numpy.datetime64 data:

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
engine = create_engine(URL(
    account = 'testaccount',
    user = 'testuser1',
    password = 'pass',
    database = 'db',
    schema = 'public',
    warehouse = 'testwh',
    numpy=True,
))

specific_date = np.datetime64('2016-03-04T12:03:05.123456789Z')
engine.execute(
    "CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE ts_tbl(c1 TIMESTAMP_NTZ)")
engine.execute(
    "INSERT INTO ts_tbl(c1) values(%s)", (specific_date,)
)
df = pd.read_sql_query("SELECT * FROM ts_tbl"), engine
assert df.c1.values[0] == specific_date

The following NumPy data types are supported:

numpy.int64
numpy.float64
numpy.datatime64

cheecheeo/snowflake-sqlalchemy