Connecting to PostgreSQL

The PostgreSQL ODBC driver is called psqlodbc.

Encodings

PostgreSQL uses a single encoding for all text data which you will need to configure after connecting. The example below is for UTF-8.

# Python 3.x
cnxn.setdecoding(pyodbc.SQL_WCHAR, encoding='utf-8')
cnxn.setencoding(encoding='utf-8')

# Python 2.7
cnxn.setdecoding(pyodbc.SQL_WCHAR, encoding='utf-8')
cnxn.setencoding(str, encoding='utf-8')
cnxn.setencoding(unicode, encoding='utf-8', ctype=pyodbc.SQL_CHAR)

See the Unicode page if you are using something besides UTF-8.

Performance

The driver defaults to a 255-byte maximum varchar/wvarchar size for writes which causes very slow writes. There are two easy fixes:

• Set the MaxVarcharSize parameter in your connection string or DSN.
• Set the Connection's maxwrite.

In both cases, set it to something very large. I use:

cnxn.maxwrite = 1024 * 1024 * 1024

I would consider making the default something very large, but the driver actually reports the value 255 and pyodbc needs to use the values provided. I sent an email to the PostgreSQL ODBC driver maintainer (Feb 2017) recommending increasing it but was told to use MaxVarcharSize.

odbc.ini

PostgreSQL has an option for returning boolean values as strings "0" and "1", or as booleans True and False. This can be configured using the BoolsAsChar parameter in your odbc.ini file. Set to 1 to return strings, 0 to return booleans, e.g. to return booleans:

[PostgreSQL]
Driver            = your_PostgreSQL_driver
Database          = your_database_name
BoolsAsChar       = 0