Generic database dictionary access

[David Fraser]

Edward Diener wrote:
> Version 2.0 of the Python database API was written over 5 years ago, in
> 1999. While it has been used successfully by many implementations, there is
> no generic access into the data dictionary of relational databases except at
> the table column level. I am working on some Python which would hopefully
> give me a form of generic access to more common data dictionary
> functionality such as indices, constraints etc. but no such functionality
> currently exists in the official Python distribution. Has there been any
> movement in the 5 year time span since the 2.0 API was published to add
> richer generic functionality for relational databases as regards data
> dictionary access ? I fully realize that each major RDBMS has its own
> methods for programatically querying its data dictionary, and I suspect that
> there is no common SQL specification for doing so, but I would think that
> richer functionality along these lines might be welcome to Python database
> programmers other than myself.
> 
> 
Hear Hear. This would be a welcome improvement. Note that you could 
create it as a library that runs on top of DB-API drivers and knows 
various flavours of database, and then work towards standardizing the 
interface... I for one would be interested in the library

David