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Kinetica into Apache Arrow with ADBC

Kinetica 7.1.9 (Developer Edition), read and written through adbcBridge — the ADBC driver that loads the database's ODBC driver — read-only on Linux. Everything below is the compatibility matrix's record for this row.

Status

Driver and connection string

ODBC driver

Kinetica ODBC 7.1.9.16 (libKineticaODBC.so, Simba Engine SDK 10.1.6, REST/SQL on 9191)

Wire

native ODBC

adbcBridge

0.1.1 (release)

The connection string the matrix used, as the connection strings reference records it (Databases with their own native protocol and ODBC driver); {drv} is the driver library or its name from odbcinst.ini, and the host, port and credentials are the test server's.

Driver={drv};URL=http://127.0.0.1:29191;UID=admin;PWD=admin;

Python

import adbcbridge

# {drv}: the ODBC driver library (path), or its name from odbcinst.ini
conn = adbcbridge.connect(uri="Driver={drv};URL=http://127.0.0.1:29191;UID=admin;PWD=admin;")
with conn.cursor() as cur:
    cur.execute("SELECT * FROM my_table")
    table = cur.fetch_arrow_table()      # pyarrow.Table

Polars and pandas

import polars as pl, pandas as pd

df = pl.read_database("SELECT * FROM my_table", connection=conn)   # Polars, Arrow-native
pdf = pd.read_sql("SELECT * FROM my_table", conn)                   # pandas 2.2+, ADBC connection

pip install adbcbridge brings the driver library; the Kinetica ODBC driver is installed the way its vendor documents, then named in Driver=. Rust, Go, C# and Java use the same connection string through their ADBC driver managers — see the docs.

What the matrix recorded

a vectorized analytic database with a first-party driver — and the driver has the sharpest parameter bug in this matrix.

What this stack needed

• It does not *refuse* SQLBindParameter the way the Flight SQL driver does; it accepts every bind and then executes parameter *N* with the value bound at *N+1*, sending the last parameter as NULL.
• A one-parameter INSERT therefore stores NULL under SQL_SUCCESS with an empty diagnostic queue, a three-parameter one writes the values shifted a column left, and an eight-parameter one fails HY000 (1040) Driver Error: type: %d — an unformatted format string.
• Reproduced with no pyodbc in the picture, binding SQL_C_LONG→SQL_INTEGER and SQL_C_CHAR→SQL_VARCHAR through unixODBC directly: HY000 (1040) Driver Error: stod; Setting column 'i' with value: 'hello', the second parameter's text landing in the first column.
• SQLDescribeParam compounds it by reporting every parameter as SQL_VARCHAR(1024) whatever the target column is, and a string parameter on SELECT ? segfaults the process.
• Nothing a caller binds can be trusted to arrive, so the entry is read-only and setup builds both tables with literal SQL — Kinetica itself writes fine that way, SQLExecDirect is exact, and emoji, BYTES, DATE and BOOLEAN all round-trip.
• Two bridge quirks, both keyed on the driver/DBMS name Kinetica: decimal_fixed_precision — the server has exactly one decimal type, DECIMAL(18,4) (every DECIMAL(p,s) in DDL is stored as it, as SHOW CREATE TABLE confirms), and the driver misdescribes such a column three different ways: SQLDescribeCol says precision 38 scale 0, SQLColumns says (18,18), and SQLGetTypeInfo says 38; believing scale 0 read the 12.3450 the driver hands over as a decimal128(38,0) holding 12, so the real pair is named instead. zero_row_suffix — Kinetica's planner constant-folds a provably false predicate and answers the query from its empty pseudo-table SYSTEM.ITER, which cannot project a BYTES column (Invalid attribute: BYTES(null) for table: SYSTEM.ITER … Unknown function: BYTES), so GetTableSchema and the GetObjects describe fallback failed outright on any table holding binary; they ask for no rows with LIMIT 0, which the planner does not fold.
• Also worth knowing: SQL_TXN_CAPABLE is 0, SQLGetTypeInfo names the temporal types TYPE_DATE/TYPE_TIME/TYPE_TIMESTAMP (ODBC C constants, not names any DDL accepts), DATETIME is millisecond precision, SELECT VERSION() answers with a hard-coded *PostgreSQL 9.5* banner, and UID=admin;PWD= (a non-empty user with an empty password) is refused 1010 Insufficient credentials where omitting both connects.
• Server side: the Developer Edition image needs GPUDB_START_ALL=1 or the database never starts, and it needs no GPU and no licence key; the Linux ODBC client tarball ships inside it.

Read next

• Kinetica's ODBC driver executes parameter N with the value bound at N+1
• Five Windows-only ODBC failures are one thing wearing different clothes