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# iopro.pyodbc Cancelling Queries

Starting with version 1.5, the pyodbc submodule of IOPro makes it possible to cancel operations. This is done by exposing the SQLCancel ODBC function as a cancel method in the Cursor object.

## A Simple Example

A very simple example would be:

    conn = iopro.pyodbc.connect(conn_str)
    cursor = conn.cursor()
    cursor.execute('SELECT something FROM sample_table')
    result = cursor.fetchone()
    cursor.cancel()

This is not very interesting, and it doesn’t add much to the functionality of pyodbc.

What makes the cancel method more interesting is that it is possible to cancel running statements that are blocking another thread.

## A Sample With Threading

Having access to the cancel method it is possible to stop running queries following different criteria. For example, it would be possible to execute queries with a time-out. If the time runs out, the query gets cancelled.

    import iopro.pyodbc
    import time
    import threading

    def query_with_time_out(conn, query, timeout):
        def watchdog(cursor, time_out):
            time.sleep(wait_time)
            cursor.cancel()

        cursor = conn.cursor()

        t = threading.Thread(target=watchdog, args=(cursor, timeout))
        t.start()
        try:
            cursor.execute(query)

            result = cursor.fetchall()
        except iopro.pyodbc.Error:
            result = 'timed out'

        return result

This is just one possibility. As cursor exposes directly the SQLCancel, many oportunities open in implementing policies to cancel running queries.

## Finishing notes

In order for this to work, the underlying ODBC driver must support SQLCancel.

The pyodbc submodule of IOPro releases the Python GIL when it calls ODBC, so while queries are being executed other Python threads continue to execute while the thread that performed the query is blocked. This allows for cancel to be called by another thread. Coupled with threading, the cancel method is a very useful primitive.