Python context manager raises error with datajoint connection object

[drewyangdev]

Bug Report

Description

Datajoint connection cannot be defined with the python with, and using with is the regular way to make sure a connection is closed after dj.conn().

Reproducibility

Include:

• OS (Linux)
• Python Version 3.9
• MySQL Version 8.0
• MySQL Deployment Strategy (remote)
• DataJoint Version 0.14.0
• Minimum number of steps to reliably reproduce the issue

with dj.conn(**conn_info) as connection:
            print(connection)

• Complete error stack as a result of evaluating the above steps

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File , in <module>
    app.lambda_handler(payload.EVENT, payload.CONTEXT)
  File , line 136, in lambda_handler
    with dj.conn(**conn_info):
AttributeError: __enter__

Expected Behavior

Using with to create a datajoint db connection, and close the connection at the end of the with clause.

[ethho]

AFAIK, dj.Connection does not implement a context manager. So this issue is a feature request to add context manager functionality to dj.Connection, not a bug fix.

[dimitri-yatsenko]

Implemented in PR #1320.

The Connection class now supports Python's context manager protocol:

with dj.Connection(host, user, password) as conn:
    schema = dj.schema('my_schema', connection=conn)
    MyTable().insert(data)
# Connection automatically closed when exiting the block

This is particularly useful for serverless environments (AWS Lambda, Cloud Functions) where explicit connection lifecycle control is needed.

The existing persistent singleton pattern (dj.conn()) remains the default and recommended approach for interactive sessions and notebooks.

Documentation updated in how-to/configure-database.md with a new "Connection Lifecycle" section covering both patterns.