Files
lancedb/python
adenzhou1350 9f4cd1618b fix(python): handle empty batch iterables with a schema (#4538)
## Summary

`create_table(data=iter(()), schema=...)` currently raises
`RuntimeError: coroutine raised StopIteration`, although an empty list
with the same schema works. A tuple of batches also fails because the
helper calls `next()` before obtaining an iterator.

Normalize the iterable once and use the supplied schema for an empty
reader. Without a schema, raise a clear `ValueError`. Nonempty schema
inference and batch casting are unchanged.

Tests cover synchronous/asynchronous creation, empty/nonempty iterators
and tuples, and schema-aware `add()` sanitization. The default
schema-less `add()` rejection is deliberately unchanged.

## Validation

- Built the current Rust/PyO3 extension from base `9f37f392` with the
repository's `ci` profile; both Python-only arms use the same verified
extension and locked Python dependency versions.
- Complete `python/tests/test_table.py` +
`python/tests/test_scannable.py`: **268 passed, 0 skipped**. The
unchanged production code with identical tests has **24 failures / 244
passes**.
- Both arms used four-CPU affinity. An initial unrestricted-affinity run
exhausted thread creation under the private memory limit; that failed
attempt is not counted as a pass.
- Package-wide Ruff check/format pass. Repository-wide checks still
report pre-existing findings in unchanged `docs/web-tests`; those files
are not modified here.

AI-assisted change, reproduced against unchanged production code and
validated with a native source build. This does not claim the full
repository/platform matrix or a performance improvement.

Signed-off-by: Xucheng Zhou <aden1350@outlook.com>
2026-10-23 03:19:06 +08:00
..
2025-01-29 08:27:07 -08:00
2024-04-05 16:22:59 -07:00

LanceDB Python SDK

A Python library for LanceDB.

Installation

pip install lancedb

If no wheel is published for your platform, pip builds lancedb from the source distribution. That build needs a Rust toolchain and protoc (the Protocol Buffers compiler) on your PATH, and can take a while.

Pre-Haswell x86_64 hosts: lancedb-compat

The default lancedb wheel targets x86-64-haswell (AVX2 + FMA + F16C) for full performance on modern hardware. Pre-Haswell hosts — Intel Sandy Bridge / Ivy Bridge / Westmere; AMD Bulldozer / Piledriver / Steamroller — don't have AVX2 and crash with Illegal instruction at import lancedb.

For those hosts, install the lancedb-compat package instead:

pip install lancedb-compat

Same Python API (import lancedb works as usual). The compat wheel is compiled at the x86-64-v2 baseline (Nehalem-class) and uses runtime SIMD dispatch in the embedded lance crate to pick the right kernel tier (scalar / AVX / AVX+FMA / AVX2+FMA / AVX-512) at load time, so it still goes fast on modern hardware while running cleanly on the pre-Haswell silicon. Use lance.simd_info() from Python to verify which tier was selected.

lancedb and lancedb-compat install to the same lancedb/ namespace and conflict at install time. Pick one. To switch, pip uninstall lancedb first, then pip install lancedb-compat (or vice-versa).

If you need a custom baseline (or lancedb-compat isn't yet published for your platform), build from source with the override:

RUSTFLAGS="-C target-cpu=x86-64-v2" maturin build --release
pip install ./target/wheels/lancedb-*.whl

Preview Releases

Stable releases are created about every 2 weeks. For the latest features and bug fixes, you can install the preview release. These releases receive the same level of testing as stable releases, but are not guaranteed to be available for more than 6 months after they are released. Once your application is stable, we recommend switching to stable releases.

pip install --pre --extra-index-url https://pypi.fury.io/lancedb/ lancedb

Threading in CPU-limited containers

LanceDB uses separate pools for compute work and storage I/O. On a container with two visible CPUs, current releases intentionally use one compute worker by default; no manual configuration is needed. If every query logs an I/O core reservation warning on a two-CPU container, upgrade from LanceDB 0.21.1 or earlier.

The two commonly tuned environment variables control different resources:

  • LANCE_CPU_THREADS overrides the number of compute workers. One worker is the appropriate setting for a two-CPU container when an explicit override is needed.
  • LANCE_IO_THREADS controls concurrent storage operations, not reserved CPU cores. Its default can be greater than the number of CPUs because I/O workers spend much of their time waiting for storage.

Keep the defaults unless measurements show that the workload benefits from an override. See the Lance threading model for the current defaults and tuning guidance.

Usage

Basic Example

import lancedb
db = lancedb.connect('<PATH_TO_LANCEDB_DATASET>')
table = db.open_table('my_table')
results = table.search([0.1, 0.3]).limit(20).to_list()
print(results)

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to contribute to LanceDB.