Files
lancedb/python
Drew Gallardo e98d8ac685 feat!: rename branch merge to cherry_pick (#3986)
This PR is a **breaking** rename of #3686.

merge reads like git merge w/ three-way, replay history, combine two
lines of work. That is not this API.

This call takes one additive change on a branch and lands it on main.
New column, including a blob column. Main's existing columns are not
rewritten. If it cannot land, you get `status="failed"` and
`diff.errors`, not a merge conflict to resolve.

Cherry-pick is terminology that aligns more with that.

```python
table = db.open_table("images")
table.branches.create("exp")
exp = table.branches.checkout("exp")

exp.add_columns({"tag": "cast('draft' as string)"})

diff = table.branches.diff("exp")
preview = table.branches.cherry_pick("exp", dry_run=True)
result = table.branches.cherry_pick("exp")

if result["status"] == "cherryPicked":
    print("landed at", result["mainVersionAfter"])
elif result["status"] == "failed":
    print(result["diff"]["errors"])
```

### Behavior

- Remote / Enterprise only. Local still NotSupported.
- HTTP 409 is not an exception. It is Ok with status="failed" and
diff.errors (CherryPickError).
- Unknown error / status codes still parse as Unknown.
- Requests are not retried. 409 is final and carries the body.
- Endpoint is POST /v1/table/{id}/branches/cherry_pick/.
- merge_insert and Table.merge are unchanged.

### Testing
- `cargo test -p lancedb --features remote diff_branch`
- `cargo test -p lancedb --features remote cherry_pick`
- `pytest python/python/tests/test_remote_db.py -k cherry_pick`
- node `remote.test.ts` diffs / cherry-picks path
2026-08-21 23:37:12 -07:00
..
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

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.