Gadfly is a collection of python modules that provides relational database functionality entirely implemented in Python. It supports a subset of the intergalactic standard RDBMS Structured Query Language SQL.

One of the most compelling aspects of Gadfly is that it runs whereever Python runs and supports client/server on any platform that supports the standard Python socket interface. Even the file formats used by Gadfly for storage are cross-platform -- a gadfly database directory can be moved from Win95 to Linux using a binary copying mechanism and gadfly will read and run the database.

It supports persistent databases consisting of a collection of structured tables with indices, and a large subset of SQL for accessing and modifying those tables. It supports a log based recovery protocol which allows committed operations of a database to be recovered even if the database was not shut down in a proper manner (ie, in the event of a CPU or software crash, [but not in the event of a disk crash]). It also supports a TCP/IP Client/Server mode where remote clients can access a Gadfly database over a TCP/IP network (such as the Internet) subject to configurable security mechanisms.

Because it lacks (at this time) true concurrency control, and file-system based indexing it is not appropriate for very large multiprocess transaction based systems.

Since Gadfly depends intimately on the kwParsing package it is distributed as part of the kwParsing package, under the same generous copyright.