News and Updates

That's not your eyes playing tricks on you, the SQLAlchemy logo is now a little bigger. Today, some modifications to the site layout have gone out, including some new fonts, updated navigation, and an all new section called The Library. The Library is the new home base for all kinds of documentation, blog posts, and videos about all things SQLAlchemy. The same old documentation links are right at the top, but beyond that there's links to the Architecture of Open Source chapter, links to Pycon talks as well as whatever else was handy. We'd like users to be aware of the very best of SQLAlchemy documentation resources so be sure to check back with the Library every now and then for new additions.

SQLAlchemy release 0.9.3 is now available.

Release 0.9.3 includes a wide array of bugfixes and a few new features. A critical subset of these fixes are also backported to release 0.8.5. Both 0.9.3 and 0.8.5 are being released simultaneously to resolve a concurrency-related regression introduced in version 0.8.4, which can cause a dialect to sporadically be used in a mis-configured state when it first connects. For this reason, 0.9.3 is recommended for all users of the 0.9 series.

Other improvements include updates to the Postgresql dialect to better handle schema reflection when working with old versions of Postgresql, namely pre-0.8.1 versions, which should also have a positive effect on those users using Amazon Redshift. 0.9.3 also includes improved support for SQLite type reflection, using SQLite's "type affinity" rules to unconditionally reflect all possible datatypes declared within a database.

Users should carefully review the Changelog to note which behaviors and issues are affected. We'd like to thank the many contributors who helped with this release.

SQLAlchemy 0.9.3 is available on the Download Page.

SQLAlchemy release 0.8.5 is now available.

Release 0.8.5 is a bugfix release which includes a wide array of fixes backported from the 0.9 series. Both 0.8.5 and 0.9.3 are being released simultaneously to resolve a concurrency-related regression introduced in version 0.8.4, which can cause a dialect to sporadically be used in a mis-configured state when it first connects. For this reason, 0.8.5 is recommended for all users on 0.8.4.

Other improvements include updates to the Postgresql dialect to better handle schema reflection when working with old versions of Postgresql, namely pre-0.8.1 versions, which should also have a positive effect on those users using Amazon Redshift.

Users should carefully review the Changelog to note which behaviors and issues are affected. We'd like to thank the many contributors who helped with this release.

SQLAlchemy 0.8.5 is available on the Download Page.

The SQLAlchemy project is now using Bitbucket for all issue tracking and wiki pages.

SQLAlchemy began using Bitbucket some years ago for pull requests, and then when the move to Git was made, Bitbucket became the originating point for the git main, which remains mirrored on SQLAlchemy's host as well as on GitHub. However, the issue system has for SQLAlchemy's entire life remained hosted on Trac.

A move from Trac to another system like GitHub or Bitbucket was not feasable until Bitbucket added an advanced import/export feature which could maintain the full history, timestamps, and user accounts of the imported issues. When this feature was introduced, the SQLAlchemy project still was reluctant to give up full control over its issue tracker, instead enabling full user account tools and adding such features as tracvatar (used by the Fedora project!) to improve the user interface. But ultimately spammers started abusing the system, and the spam tools provided with Trac were failing to deter them in any way, and more generally didn't seem to work at all; an alternate plugin was installed to provide captcha support to the registration page, but spam accounts continued to register daily despite it. The account database in Trac amassed several hundred accounts, mostly inactive, any number of which might also be spam accounts. As the SQLAlchemy project has no interest being in the business of maintaining user account databases, the impetus to move became clear. An additional advantage is that the issue system is no longer throttled to crawlers, who were also a nuisance on SQLAlchemy's very low power host.

After two weeks of effort to produce import/export tools as well as to develop various utilities and workarounds for some issues encountered with Bitbucket (most notably, that its system marks every issue and comment not owned by you as spam after an import is done, meaning you have to un-mark them all), the issue system has been moved entirely. SQLAlchemy's host is now used to serve the main website and for the Jenkins main (which is also non-public to deter crawlers from slowing it down).

SQLAlchemy release 0.9.2 is now available.

Release 0.9.2, while only a "point release" in the new 0.9 series, contains a large list of bug and regression fixes across ORM, Core and dialect, as well as a significant number of new features, particularly in the area of database metadata management.

Features include a "naming convention" system for database metadata that is hoped to assist with schema management, including when using Alembic migrations, as well as new options for constraints, Postgresql table reflection, and copying of table metadata. Support and documentation has been improved for some advanced ORM patterns such as creating relationships to complex targets.

The release also features a lot of regression fixes, so is recommended for all users who have already upgraded to the 0.9 series.

Among other bugfixes, there are quite a few dialect-specific bug fixes including four for MySQL alone, as well as Oracle, Postgresql, MSSQL, and SQLite, as well as a good number of ORM fixes.

Full changelog for SQLAlchemy 0.9.2 is at Changes, and for an overview of what's new in SQLAlchemy 0.9 overall, see What's New in 0.9.

Download SQLAlchemy 0.9.2 on the Download Page.