gh-107938: Synchonise the signature of of sqlite3.connect and sqlite3.Connection.__init__

[erlend-aasland]

• Issue: Synchronise the signature of sqlite3.connect? and sqlite3.Connection.__init__` #107938

[erlend-aasland]

Suggesting to backport this, in order to easier backport docstring updates.

[erlend-aasland]

cc. @serhiy-storchaka, if you want to look this over; it is a trivial change

[serhiy-storchaka]

This is an interesting trick, but in future they can divergent.

Connection.__init__ and __init__ in its subclasses currently require the factory parameter to be supported, even if it is ignored. This is both a wart and an artifact of implementation. It may be removed in the future, and from then on the connect and Connection.__init__ signatures will be different.

It is a long way, and I think that it can only happen in distant future, but you should be aware of consequences.

[erlend-aasland]

Yes, that is true, but as you say, it is a long way into the future. For now, it makes it simpler for us to do stuff like deprecating positional use of parameters.

[serhiy-storchaka]

BTW, after making all optional arguments keyword-only, why not implement connect() in Python?

def connect(database, *, factory=Connection, **kwargs):
    return factory(database, **kwargs)

[erlend-aasland]

BTW, after making all optional arguments keyword-only, why not implement connect() in Python?

def connect(database, *, factory=Connection, **kwargs):
    return factory(database, **kwargs)

That is a very good idea.

BTW, I've toyed the idea of with turning _sqlite3 into a small extension module that simply exposes the relevant SQLite APIs, and then implement Lib/sqlite3.py using _sqlite3. It would probably have a performance impact, but it would make maintenance easier.

[erlend-aasland]

Ah, of course, we cannot backport this because the clone __init__ feature in Argument Clinic is only present in main. Well, backporting is not very important; the spec of sqlite3.connect and sqlite3.Connection.__init__ should not change in 3.12 and 3.11.