cx_Oracle is a Python extension module that enables access to Oracle Database. It conforms to the Python database API 2.0 specification with a considerable number of additions and a couple of exclusions.

cx_Oracle is licensed under a BSD license which you can find here.

cx_Oracle 6 has been tested with Python version 2.7, and with versions 3.4 and higher. You can use cx_Oracle with Oracle 11.2, 12.1 and 12.2 client libraries. Oracle's standard client-server version interoperability allows connection to both older and newer databases, for example Oracle 12.2 client libraries can connect to Oracle Database 11.2.

Install Python from python.org.

Install cx_Oracle using Quick Start cx_Oracle Installation.

Download cx_Oracle samples or create a script like the one below.

Locate your Oracle Database username and password, and the database connection string. The connection string is commonly of the format hostname/servicename, using the hostname where the database is running, and the service name of the Oracle Database instance.

Substitute your username, password and connection string in the code. For downloaded examples, put these in SampleEnv.py and SampleEnv.sql, and then follow sample/README to create the cx_Oracle sample schema. SQL scripts to create Oracle Database's common sample schemas can be found at github.com/oracle/db-sample-schemas.

Run the Python script, for example:

python myscript.py

# myscript.py

from __future__ import print_function

import cx_Oracle

# Connect as user "hr" with password "welcome" to the "oraclepdb" service running on this computer.
connection = cx_Oracle.connect("hr", "welcome", "localhost/orclpdb")

cursor = connection.cursor()
cursor.execute("""
    SELECT first_name, last_name
    FROM employees
    WHERE department_id = :did AND employee_id > :eid""",
    did = 50,
    eid = 190)
for fname, lname in cursor:
print("Values:", fname, lname)

See cx_Oracle Installation.

See the samples directory and the test suite. You can also look at the scripts in cx_OracleTools and the modules in cx_PyOracleLib.

See the cx_Oracle Documentation.

See What's New and the Release Notes.

See the test suite.

Issues and questions can be raised with the cx_Oracle community on GitHub or on the mailing list.

• Easily installed from PyPI.

• Support for Python 2 and 3.

• Support for Oracle Client 11.2, 12.1 and 12.2. Oracle's standard cross-version interoperability, allows easy upgrades and connectivity to different Oracle Database versions.

• Connect to Oracle Database 9.2, 10, 11 or 12 (depending on the Oracle Client version used).

• SQL and PL/SQL Execution. The underlying Oracle Client libraries have significant optimizations including compressed fetch, pre-fetching, client and server result set caching, and statement caching with auto-tuning.

• Full use of Oracle Network Service infrastructure, including encrypted network traffic and security features.

• Extensive Oracle data type support, including large object support (CLOB and BLOB).

• Direct binding to SQL objects. One great use case is binding Python objects to Oracle Spatial SDO objects.

• Array operations for efficient INSERT and UPDATEs.

• Array row counts and batch error handling for array operations.

• Fetching of large result sets.

• REF CURSOR support.

• Support for scrollable cursors. Go back and forth through your query results.

• Fetch PL/SQL Implicit Results. Easily return query results from PL/SQL.

• Row Prefetching. Efficient use of the network.

• Client Result Caching. Improve performance of frequently executed look-up statements.

• Support for Advanced Queuing. Use database notifications to build micro-service applications.

• Continuous Query Notification. Get notified when data changes.

• Support for Edition Based Redefinition. Easily switch applications to use updated PL/SQL logic.

• Support for setting application context during the creation of a connection, making application metadata more accessible to the database, including in LOGON triggers.

• End-to-end monitoring and tracing.

• Transaction Management.

• Session Pooling.

• Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP).

• Privileged Connections.

• External Authentication.

• Database startup and shutdown.

• Sharded Databases

• Oracle Database High Availability Features, such as FAN notifications and Transaction Guard support.

DB API specification exclusions: The time data type is not supported by Oracle and is therefore not implemented. The method cursor.nextset() is not implemented either as the DB API specification assumes an implementation of cursors that does not fit well with Oracle's implementation of cursors and implicit results. See the method cursor.getimplicitresults() for more information.