open

Open an existing collection from disk

Function signature

zvec.open(
    path: str,
    option: CollectionOption = CollectionOption()
) -> Collection

Open an existing collection from disk. The collection must have been previously created with create_and_open.

Parameters

path · string · required

Path or name of the existing collection.

Must point to a valid collection that was previously created with zvec.create_and_open().

option · CollectionOption · default: "CollectionOption()"

Configuration options for opening the collection.

Defaults to a default-constructed CollectionOption() if not provided.

Return value

Returns a Collection instance that can be used for querying, inserting, updating, and deleting data.

Exceptions

• May raise errors if the collection does not exist at the specified path.
• May raise errors if the collection is corrupted or incompatible with the current Zvec version.
• May raise errors if the collection is already open by another process (depending on locking behavior).

Examples

Open an existing collection

Simple usage with default options:

import zvec

# Initialize Zvec first
zvec.init()

# Open existing collection
coll = zvec.open("./my_collection")

# Use the collection
results = coll.query(limit=10)

Open with custom options

Specify collection options when opening:

import zvec
from zvec import CollectionOption

zvec.init()

option = CollectionOption()

coll = zvec.open("./my_collection", option)

Error handling

Handle potential errors when opening a collection:

import zvec

zvec.init()

try:
    coll = zvec.open("./my_collection")
    print("Collection opened successfully")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Failed to open collection: {e}")

Open multiple collections

Work with multiple collections simultaneously:

import zvec

zvec.init()

# Open multiple collections
coll_users = zvec.open("./users")
coll_posts = zvec.open("./posts")
coll_comments = zvec.open("./comments")

# Use collections independently
user_results = coll_users.query(limit=10)
post_results = coll_posts.query(limit=20)

Best practices

Always call zvec.init() before opening collections to ensure proper initialization.

Ensure the collection path exists and points to a valid Zvec collection created with create_and_open().

The same collection can be opened multiple times within the same process, but be aware of potential concurrency issues when writing to the collection.

See also

• zvec.create_and_open - Create a new collection
• zvec.init - Initialize Zvec configuration