Documentation

Python Flight SQL DBAPI client

The Python flightsql-dbapi Flight SQL DBAPI library integrates with Python applications using SQL to query data stored in an InfluxDB 3 Core database. The flightsql-dbapi library uses the Flight SQL protocol to query and retrieve data.

Use InfluxDB 3 client libraries

We recommend using the influxdb3-python Python client library for integrating InfluxDB 3 with your Python application code.

InfluxDB 3 client libraries wrap Apache Arrow Flight clients and provide convenient methods for writing, querying, and processing data stored in InfluxDB 3 Core. Client libraries can query using SQL or InfluxQL.

Installation

The flightsql-dbapi Flight SQL library for Python provides a DB API 2 interface and SQLAlchemy dialect for Flight SQL. Installing flightsql-dbapi also installs the pyarrow library that you’ll use for working with Arrow data.

In your terminal, use pip to install flightsql-dbapi:

pip install flightsql-dbapi

Importing the module

The flightsql-dbapi package provides the flightsql module. From the module, import the FlightSQLClient class method:

from flightsql import FlightSQLClient
  • flightsql.FlightSQLClient class: an interface for initializing a client and interacting with a Flight SQL server.

API reference

Class FlightSQLClient

Provides an interface for initializing a client and interacting with a Flight SQL server.

Syntax

__init__(self, host=None, token=None, metadata=None, features=None)

Initializes and returns a FlightSQLClient instance for interacting with the server.

Initialize a client

The following example shows how to use Python with flightsql-dbapi and the DB API 2 interface to instantiate a Flight SQL client configured for an InfluxDB database.

from flightsql import FlightSQLClient

# Instantiate a FlightSQLClient configured for a database
client = FlightSQLClient(host='localhost:8181',
                        token='
DATABASE_TOKEN
'
,
metadata={'database': '
DATABASE_NAME
'
},
features={'metadata-reflection': 'true'})

Replace the following:

  • DATABASE_TOKEN: an InfluxDB 3 Core database token with read permissions on the databases you want to query
  • DATABASE_NAME: the name of your InfluxDB 3 Core database

Instance methods

FlightSQLClient.execute

Sends a Flight SQL RPC request to execute the specified SQL Query.

Syntax

execute(query: str, call_options: Optional[FlightSQLCallOptions] = None)

Example

# Execute the query
info = client.execute("SELECT * FROM home")

The response contains a flight.FlightInfo object that contains metadata and an endpoints: [...] list. Each endpoint contains the following:

  • A list of addresses where you can retrieve query result data.
  • A ticket value that identifies the data to retrieve.

FlightSQLClient.do_get

Passes a Flight ticket (obtained from a FlightSQLClient.execute response) and retrieves Arrow data identified by the ticket. Returns a pyarrow.flight.FlightStreamReader for streaming the data.

Syntax

 do_get(ticket, call_options: Optional[FlightSQLCallOptions] = None)

Example

The following sample shows how to use Python with flightsql-dbapi and pyarrow to query InfluxDB and retrieve data.

from flightsql import FlightSQLClient

# Instantiate a FlightSQLClient configured for a database
client = FlightSQLClient(host='localhost:8181',
    token='DATABASE_TOKEN',
    metadata={'database': 'DATABASE_NAME'},
    features={'metadata-reflection': 'true'})

# Execute the query to retrieve FlightInfo
info = client.execute("SELECT * FROM home")

# Extract the token for retrieving data
ticket = info.endpoints[0].ticket

# Use the ticket to request the Arrow data stream.
# Return a FlightStreamReader for streaming the results.
reader = client.do_get(ticket)

# Read all data to a pyarrow.Table
table = reader.read_all()

print(table)

do_get(ticket) returns a pyarrow.flight.FlightStreamReader for streaming Arrow record batches.

To read data from the stream, call one of the following FlightStreamReader methods:

  • read_all(): Read all record batches as a pyarrow.Table.
  • read_chunk(): Read the next RecordBatch and metadata.
  • read_pandas(): Read all record batches and convert them to a pandas.DataFrame.

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New in InfluxDB 3.5

Key enhancements in InfluxDB 3.5 and the InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3.

See the Blog Post

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, introducing custom plugin repository support, enhanced operational visibility with queryable CLI parameters and manual node management, stronger security controls, and general performance improvements.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.3 brings powerful new capabilities including Dashboards (beta) for saving and organizing your favorite queries, and cache querying for instant access to Last Value and Distinct Value caches—making Explorer a more comprehensive workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

For more information, check out:

InfluxDB Docker latest tag changing to InfluxDB 3 Core

On November 3, 2025, the latest tag for InfluxDB Docker images will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments.

If using Docker to install and run InfluxDB, the latest tag will point to InfluxDB 3 Core. To avoid unexpected upgrades, use specific version tags in your Docker deployments. For example, if using Docker to run InfluxDB v2, replace the latest version tag with a specific version tag in your Docker pull command–for example:

docker pull influxdb:2