Connecting to DB2 on MacOS with Python (Intel and Apple Silicon)

If you’ve tried to connect to a DB2 database using the ibm-db package, you might have run into this issue at some point.

After hours and even days of Googling, I finally compiled a number of Github issues and Stack overflow posts to come to the solution to this problem.

Connecting to IBM DB2 on MacOS (Intel) with Python

Here are the steps I used to solve this problem:

  1. Install Python 3.x via Homebrew. Doing so allows give you a more standard location for the Python3.x executable
# Example: brew install python @3.9
brew install python @3.x

# Add the installed Python brew to your PATH
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/python@3.x/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc # If zsh is your default shell
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/python@3.x/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc # If bash is your default shell

source ~/.zshrc # If zsh is your default shell
source ~/.bashrc # If bash is your default shell
  1. Make sure you’re using a virtual environment. I primarily use Pycharm IDE, so isolating this issue to a virtual environment made it easier to fix for me.
# Double check this is the python version you're wanting to use
python3--version

# Move to your project folder
cd project_folder

# Create the virtual environment in your project folder
python3 - m venv venv
  1. Activate your virtual environment. If you don’t do this, the below script won’t work
source venv / bin / activate
  1. Run the following script (https://gist.github.com/dragid10/afb9b16d72c4f7807938bd28c37f6ad3)
# Only need to execute this when running on mac
set - ex
py_folder = $(ls venv / lib | head - n 1)
cd "venv/lib/$py_folder/site-packages/"

db2_binary = $(ls ibm_db.cpython * | head - n 1)
echo "$db2_binary"
install_name_tool - change libdb2.dylib "$(pwd)/clidriver/lib/libdb2.dylib" "$db2_binary"

if test - f "$PWD/clidriver/lib/libdb2.dylib"; then
rm - rf libdb2.dylib
fi

ln - s "/usr/local/lib/$py_folder/site-packages/clidriver/lib/libdb2.dylib" libdb2.dylib
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH = "venv/lib/$py_folder/site-packages/clidriver/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

After this, you should successfully be able to connect to DB2 via Python.

Note, I’ve only had this issue when using Python 3.7 and python 3.8. Testing with Python 3.9,  I don’t have this problem, and don’t need to run this script. Your results may vary

Connecting to IBM DB2 on MacOS (M1 / Apple Silicon) with Python

The steps for this are a bit more complicated an very easy to get wrong unfortunately

  1. Reinstall homebrew, but the x86 compatible version of homebrew! The explanation for why this is needed is on the python-ibmdb page. You might need to uninstall your current version of homebrew first
# Uninstall current version of homebrew
  / bin / bash - c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/uninstall.sh)"

# Install the x86 - compatible version of homebrew
arch - x86_64 / bin / bash - c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"
  1. Install the x86 compatible version of Python you want.
arch - x86_64 brew install python @3.x
  1. Make sure you’re using a virtual environment. Similar to the Intel instructions, virtual environments help isolate packages between projects
# Double check this is the python version you're wanting to use
python3--version

# Move to your project folder
cd project_folder

# Create the virtual environment in your project folder
python3 - m venv venv
  1. Activate your virtual environment
source venv / bin / activate
  1. Test the ibm_db package works.  If it works in the python REPL, then it should work when actually run. You should not expect any return value if it is working properly!
python3 - c "import ibm_db" # Should not return anything!