Connect a Python application to Neon using Psycopg

This guide describes how to create a Neon project and connect to it from a simple Python application using Psycopg (psycopg2), a popular Postgres database adapter for the Python programming language. The application connects to Neon and retrieves the current time and Postgres version.

To connect:

1. Create a Neon Project
2. Create a Python project
3. Store your Neon credentials
4. Configure your Python script
5. Test your connection

Create a Neon project

If you do not have one already, create a Neon project.

1. Navigate to the Projects page in the Neon Console.
2. Click New Project.
3. Specify your project settings and click Create Project.

The project is created with a ready-to-use neondb database, which you will connect to.

Create a Python project

1. Create a project directory and change to the newly created directory.

   mkdir neon-python-example
   cd neon-python-example

2. Set up a Python virtual environment in this directory. The virtual environment isolates your project's Python environment (including installed packages) from the rest of your system.

   python3 -m venv env

3. Activate the virtual environment. When the virtual environment is activated, Python uses the environment's version of Python and any installed packages.

   source env/bin/activate

4. Install the following dependencies in your project's root directory for synchronous and asynchronous code, respectively. You can install them using pip:

   synchronous

   asynchronous

   pip install psycopg2-binary python-dotenv

Store your Neon credentials

Add a .env file to your project's root directory and add your Neon connection string to it.

You can find all of the connection details listed above in the Connection Details widget on the Neon Dashboard. For more information, see Connect from any application.

Your connection string will look something like this:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://[user]:[password]@[neon_hostname]/[dbname]?sslmode=require

Configure your python script

Add a neon-connect.py file to your project's root directory and add the following code. The script connects to your Neon database and retrieves the current time and Postgres version.

import os
from psycopg2 import pool
from dotenv import load_dotenv

# Load .env file
load_dotenv()

# Get the connection string from the environment variable
connection_string = os.getenv('DATABASE_URL')

# Create a connection pool
connection_pool = pool.SimpleConnectionPool(
    1,  # Minimum number of connections in the pool
    10,  # Maximum number of connections in the pool
    connection_string
)

# Check if the pool was created successfully
if connection_pool:
    print("Connection pool created successfully")

# Get a connection from the pool
conn = connection_pool.getconn()

# Create a cursor object
cur = conn.cursor()

# Execute SQL commands to retrieve the current time and version from PostgreSQL
cur.execute('SELECT NOW();')
time = cur.fetchone()[0]

cur.execute('SELECT version();')
version = cur.fetchone()[0]

# Close the cursor and return the connection to the pool
cur.close()
connection_pool.putconn(conn)

# Close all connections in the pool
connection_pool.closeall()

# Print the results
print('Current time:', time)
print('PostgreSQL version:', version)

Test your connection

Run the neon-connect.py script to test your connection.

python3 neon-connect.py

If the connection is successful, the script returns information similar to the following:

Current time: 2023-05-24 08:53:10.403140+00:00
PostgreSQL version: PostgreSQL 15.2 on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 10.2.1-6) 10.2.1 20210110, 64-bit

Source code

You can find the source code for the applications described in this guide on GitHub.

• Get started with Python and Neon using asyncpg

  Get started with Python and Neon using asyncpg

• Get started with Python and Neon using psycopg2

  Get started with Python and Neon using psycopg2