Data Types

Python 3

Python parameters sent to the database

The following table describes how Python objects passed to Cursor.execute() as parameters are formatted and passed to the driver/database.

Python Datatype	Description	ODBC Datatype
None	varies	varies (1)
str	UCS-2 encoded Unicode	SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_WLONGVARCHAR (2)
bytes, bytearray	binary	SQL_VARBINARY or SQL_LONGVARBINARY (2)
bool	bit	BIT
datetime.date	date	SQL_TYPE_DATE
datetime.time	time	SQL_TYPE_TIME
datetime.datetime	timestamp	SQL_TIMESTAMP
int	integer	SQL_BIGINT
float	floating point	SQL_DOUBLE
decimal	numeric	SQL_NUMERIC

1. If the driver supports it, SQLDescribeParam is used to determine the appropriate type. If not supported, SQL_VARCHAR is used.
2. SQLGetTypeInfo is used to determine when the LONG types are used. If not supported by the driver, VARCHAR and WVARCHAR will be 255 and BINARY will be 510.

SQL values received from the database

The following table describes how database results are converted to Python objects.

Description	ODBC Datatype	Python Datatype
NULL	any	None
UCS-2 encoded Unicode	SQL_WCHAR, SQL_WVARCHAR	str
ASCII	SQL_CHAR, SQL_VARCHAR	str
GUID	SQL_GUID	str
XML	SQL_XML	str
binary	SQL_BINARY, SQL_VARBINARY	bytes
decimal, numeric	SQL_DECIMAL	decimal.Decimal
bit	SQL_BIT	bool
integers	SQL_TINYINT, SQL_SMALLINT, SQL_INTEGER, SQL_BIGINT	int
floating point	SQL_REAL, SQL_FLOAT, SQL_DOUBLE	float
time	SQL_TYPE_TIME	datetime.time
SQL Server time	SS_TIME2	datetime.time
date	SQL_TYPE_DATE	datetime.date
timestamp	SQL_TIMESTAMP	datetime.datetime

Python 2

Python parameters sent to the database

Python Datatype	Description	ODBC Datatype
None	varies	varies (1)
unicode	UCS-2 encoded Unicode	SQL_WVARCHAR or SQL_WLONGVARCHAR (2)
str	ASCII	SQL_VARCHAR or SQL_LONGVARCHAR (2)
bytearray (3)	binary	SQL_VARBINARY or SQL_LONGVARBINARY (2)
buffer	binary	SQL_VARBINARY or SQL_LONGVARBINARY (2)
bool	bit	BIT
datetime.date	date	SQL_TYPE_DATE
datetime.time	time	SQL_TYPE_TIME
datetime.datetime	timestamp	SQL_TIMESTAMP
int	integer	SQL_INTEGER
long	bigint	SQL_BIGINT
float	double	SQL_DOUBLE
decimal	numeric	SQL_NUMERIC

1. If the driver supports it, SQLDescribeParam is used to determine the appropriate type. If not supported, SQL_VARCHAR is used.
2. SQLGetTypeInfo is used to determine when the LONG types are used. If not supported by the driver, VARCHAR and WVARCHAR will be 255 and BINARY will be 510.
3. Introduced in Python 2.6

SQL values received from the database

The following table describes how database results are converted to Python objects.

Description	ODBC Datatype	Python Datatype
NULL	any	None
UCS-2 encoded Unicode	SQL_WCHAR, SQL_WVARCHAR	unicode
ASCII	SQL_CHAR, SQL_VARCHAR	str
GUID	SQL_GUID	str
XML	SQL_XML	str
binary	SQL_BINARY, SQL_VARBINARY	bytearray (Python 2.6+) or buffer(str) (Python 2.4 & 2.5)
decimal, numeric	SQL_DECIMAL, SQL_DECIMAL	decimal.Decimal
bit	SQL_BIT	bool
integers	SQL_TINYINT, SQL_SMALLINT, SQL_INTEGER, SQL_BIGINT	long
floating point	SQL_REAL, SQL_FLOAT, SQL_DOUBLE	float
time	SQL_TYPE_TIME	datetime.time
SQL Server time	SS_TIME2	datetime.time
date	SQL_TYPE_DATE	datetime.date
timestamp	SQL_TIMESTAMP	datetime.datetime