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# Client Parameters

Warning

The interfaces dealing with optparse are subject to change in 1.0.

There are various sources of parameters used by PostgreSQL client applications. The postgresql.clientparameters module provides a means for collecting and managing those parameters.

Connection creation interfaces in postgresql.driver are purposefully simple. All parameters taken by those interfaces are keywords, and are taken literally; if a parameter is not given, it will effectively be None. libpq-based drivers tend differ as they inherit some default client parameters from the environment. Doing this by default is undesirable as it can cause trivial failures due to unexpected parameter inheritance. However, using these parameters from the environment and other sources are simply expected in some cases: postgresql.open, postgresql.bin.pg_python, and other high-level utilities. The postgresql.clientparameters module provides a means to collect them into one dictionary object for subsequent application to a connection creation interface.

postgresql.clientparameters is primarily useful to script authors that want to provide an interface consistent with PostgreSQL commands like `psql`.

## Collecting Parameters

The primary entry points in postgresql.clientparameters are postgresql.clientparameters.collect and postgresql.clientparameters.resolve_password.

For most purposes, `collect` will suffice. By default, it will prompt for the password if instructed to(`-W`). Therefore, `resolve_password` need not be used in most cases:

    >>> import sys
    >>> import postgresql.clientparameters as pg_param
    >>> p = pg_param.DefaultParser()
    >>> co, ca = p.parse_args(sys.argv[1:])
    >>> params = pg_param.collect(parsed_options = co)

The postgresql.clientparameters module is executable, so you can see the results of the above snippet by:

    $ python -m postgresql.clientparameters -h localhost -U a_db_user -ssearch_path=public
    {'host': 'localhost',
     'password': None,
     'port': 5432,
     'settings': {'search_path': 'public'},
     'user': 'a_db_user'}

### postgresql.clientparameters.collect

Build a client parameter dictionary from the environment and parsed command line options. The following is a list of keyword arguments that `collect` will accept:

> `parsed_options`
>   Options parsed by postgresql.clientparameters.StandardParser or postgresql.clientparameters.DefaultParser instances.
> `no_defaults`
>   When True, don’t include defaults like `pgpassfile` and `user`. Defaults to False.
> `environ`
>   Environment variables to extract client parameter variables from. Defaults to os.environ and expects a collections.Mapping interface.
> `environ_prefix`
>   Environment variable prefix to use. Defaults to “PG”. This allows the collection of non-standard environment variables whose keys are partially consistent with the standard variants. e.g. “PG_SRC_USER”, “PG_SRC_HOST”, etc.
> `default_pg_sysconfdir`
>   The location of the pg_service.conf file. The `PGSYSCONFDIR` environment variable will override this. When a default installation is present, `PGINSTALLATION`, it should be set to this.
> `pg_service_file`
>   Explicit location of the service file. This will override the “sysconfdir” based path.
> `prompt_title`
>   Descriptive title to use if a password prompt is needed. None to disable password resolution entirely. Setting this to None will also disable pgpassfile lookups, so it is necessary that further processing occurs when this is None.
> `parameters`
>   Base client parameters to use. These are set after the defaults are collected. (The defaults that can be disabled by `no_defaults`).

If `prompt_title` is not set to None, it will prompt for the password when instructed to do by the `prompt_password` key in the parameters:

    >>> import postgresql.clientparameters as pg_param
    >>> p = pg_param.collect(prompt_title = 'my_prompt!', parameters = {'prompt_password':True})
    Password for my_prompt![pq://jwp@localhost:5432]:
    >>> p
    {'host': 'localhost', 'user': 'jwp', 'password': 'secret', 'port': 5432}

If None, it will leave the necessary password resolution information in the parameters dictionary for `resolve_password`:

    >>> p = pg_param.collect(prompt_title = None, parameters = {'prompt_password':True})
    >>> p
    {'pgpassfile': '/Users/jwp/.pgpass', 'prompt_password': True, 'host': 'localhost', 'user': 'jwp', 'port': 5432}

Of course, `'prompt_password'` is normally specified when `parsed_options` received a `-W` option from the command line:

    >>> op = pg_param.DefaultParser()
    >>> co, ca = op.parse_args(['-W'])
    >>> p = pg_param.collect(parsed_options = co)
    >>> p=pg_param.collect(parsed_options = co)
    Password for [pq://jwp@localhost:5432]:
    >>> p
    {'host': 'localhost', 'user': 'jwp', 'password': 'secret', 'port': 5432}
    >>>

### postgresql.clientparameters.resolve_password

Resolve the password for the given client parameters dictionary returned by `collect`. By default, this function need not be used as `collect` will resolve the password by default. resolve_password accepts the following arguments:

> `parameters`
>   First positional argument. Normalized client parameters dictionary to update in-place with the resolved password. If the ‘prompt_password’ key is in `parameters`, it will prompt regardless(normally comes from `-W`).
> `getpass`
>   Function to call to prompt for the password. Defaults to getpass.getpass.
> `prompt_title`
>   Additional title to use if a prompt is requested. This can also be specified in the `parameters` as the `prompt_title` key. This augments the IRI display on the prompt. Defaults to an empty string, `''`.

The resolution process is effected by the contents of the given `parameters`. Notable keywords:

> `prompt_password`
>   If present in the given parameters, the user will be prompted for the using the given `getpass` function. This disables the password file lookup process.
> `prompt_title`
>   This states a default prompt title to use. If the `prompt_title` keyword argument is given to `resolve_password`, this will not be used.
> `pgpassfile`
>   The PostgreSQL password file to lookup the password in. If the `password` parameter is present, this will not be used.

When resolution occurs, the `prompt_password`, `prompt_title`, and `pgpassfile` keys are removed from the given parameters dictionary:

    >>> p=pg_param.collect(prompt_title = None)
    >>> p
    {'pgpassfile': '/Users/jwp/.pgpass', 'host': 'localhost', 'user': 'jwp', 'port': 5432}
    >>> pg_param.resolve_password(p)
    >>> p
    {'host': 'localhost', 'password': 'secret', 'user': 'jwp', 'port': 5432}

## Defaults

The following is a list of default parameters provided by `collect` and the sources of their values:

> Key | Value
> --- | ---
> `'user'` | getpass.getuser() or `'postgres'`
> `'host'` | postgresql.clientparameters.default_host (`'localhost'`)
> `'port'` | postgresql.clientparameters.default_port (`5432`)
> `'pgpassfile'` | `"$HOME/.pgpassfile"` or `[PGDATA]` + `'pgpass.conf'` (Win32)
> `'sslcrtfile'` | `[PGDATA]` + `'postgresql.crt'`
> `'sslkeyfile'` | `[PGDATA]` + `'postgresql.key'`
> `'sslrootcrtfile'` | `[PGDATA]` + `'root.crt'`
> `'sslrootcrlfile'` | `[PGDATA]` + `'root.crl'`

`[PGDATA]` referenced in the above table is a directory whose path is platform dependent. On most systems, it is `"$HOME/.postgresql"`, but on Windows based systems it is `"%APPDATA%\postgresql"`

Note

[PGDATA] is not an environment variable.

## PostgreSQL Environment Variables

The following is a list of environment variables that will be collected by the postgresql.clientparameter.collect function using “PG” as the `environ_prefix` and the keyword that it will be mapped to:

> Environment Variable | Keyword
> --- | ---
> `PGUSER` | `'user'`
> `PGDATABASE` | `'database'`
> `PGHOST` | `'host'`
> `PGPORT` | `'port'`
> `PGPASSWORD` | `'password'`
> `PGSSLMODE` | `'sslmode'`
> `PGSSLKEY` | `'sslkey'`
> `PGCONNECT_TIMEOUT` | `'connect_timeout'`
> `PGREALM` | `'kerberos4_realm'`
> `PGKRBSRVNAME` | `'kerberos5_service'`
> `PGPASSFILE` | `'pgpassfile'`
> `PGTZ` | `'settings' = {'timezone': }`
> `PGDATESTYLE` | `'settings' = {'datestyle': }`
> `PGCLIENTENCODING` | `'settings' = {'client_encoding': }`
> `PGGEQO` | `'settings' = {'geqo': }`

## PostgreSQL Password File

The password file is a simple newline separated list of `:` separated fields. It is located at `$HOME/.pgpass` for most systems and at `%APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf` for Windows based systems. However, the `PGPASSFILE` environment variable may be used to override that location.

The lines in the file must be in the following form:

    hostname:port:database:username:password

A single asterisk, `*`, may be used to indicate that any value will match the field. However, this only effects fields other than `password`.

See http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/libpq-pgpass.html for more details.

Client parameters produced by `collect` that have not been processed by `resolve_password` will include a `'pgpassfile'` key. This is the value that `resolve_password` will use to locate the pgpassfile to interrogate if a password key is not present and it is not instructed to prompt for a password.

Warning

Connection creation interfaces will not resolve `'pgpassfile'`, so it is important that the parameters produced by `collect()` are properly processed before an attempt is made to establish a connection.

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