Peewee (Python Sqlite ORM) - NameError: name 'SqliteDatabase' is not defined

Question

OS Linux Mint 18.3 (but same problem also with version 19)
Python3 and Sqlite3 installed

After a lot of trouble with "pip / pip3", I managed to install Peewee.

I tried running the following sample script with python3 peewee.py but I get this error:

SCRIPT (peewee.py)

from peewee import *

db = SqliteDatabase("people.db")

class Person(Model):
    name = CharField()
    birthday = DateField()

    class Meta:
        database = db # This model uses the "people.db" database.

class Pet(Model):
    owner = ForeignKeyField(Person, backref='pets')
    name = CharField()
    animal_type = CharField()

    class Meta:
        database = db # this model uses the "people.db" database

db.connect()

ERROR

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "peewee.py", line 3, in <module>
    from peewee import *
  File "/home/.../peewee.py", line 6, in <module>
    db = SqliteDatabase("people.db")
NameError: name 'SqliteDatabase' is not defined

I've already done an extensive research on google / StackOverflow, but I can't solve this problem. Could you please help me?

This 'silly' but very frustrating and understandable issue is now covered by a standard-warning in pylint: "import-self / W0406" pylint.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/messages/warning/… — julaine
– julaine, Commented Sep 24 at 11:05

Igor Carmagna · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-02 18:01:37Z

5

I tried a different approach to the problem... Turns out the problem isn't related to peewee specifically but to python.

I named the script file peewee.py.

So, because of the first line of the script from peewee import *, Python imports my own script instead of the real peewee package, hence the error.

SOLUTION
Rename the script file to something else.

(Comment: ... So sad... a lot of time wasted for a silly newbie error)

Source:
Python AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'connect'

answered Mar 2, 2019 at 18:01

Igor Carmagna

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1 Comment

JJones Over a year ago

similar issue for me too - i called my file 'select.py'

MalcolmXYZ · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-24 09:56:25Z

0

For me the issue was that I was running Peewee in wsl and installed the pip package there. So the script would run well when I called this tutorial script through the terminal.

But when i pressed the Run button in vs code it would not work and ask SQlitedatabase not found etc.

So I also installed it in windows with pip install peewee. Now both methods work perfect! Hope this helps someone.

answered Sep 24 at 9:56

MalcolmXYZ

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1 Comment

julaine Sep 24 at 11:08

That should produce a different error. When the module is not installed, there should be a "ModuleNotFoundError"; but for OP, import 'succeeds' but using names from the real module fails because the real module was never imported.

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