# Connect and Select

The shortest `connect`:

    from psycopg2 import connect
    psql_conn = connect("dbname=XXX user=XXX password=XXX host=localhost sslmode=require")
    
A little bit longer:

    from psycopg2 import connect
    # Establish psql connection
    psql_creds = {
        'dbname': 'XXX',
        'user': 'XXX',
        'password': 'XXX',
        'host': 'localhost',
        'sslmode': 'require',
    }
    psql_conn = connect(**psql_creds)
    curs = psql_conn.cursor()
    params = {
        'ID': the_id,
    }
    curs.execute('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=%(ID)s;', params)
    is_there_a_match = False if curs.fetchone() is None else True
    curs.close()
    psql_conn.close()
    
## Valid `sslmode` values
disable, allow, prefer, require, verify-ca, verify-full

Source: [PostgreSQL 9.1 - SSL Support](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/libpq-ssl.html)

# Dictionary-like cursors

    from psycopg2.extras import (DictCursor,)
    dict_cur = conn.cursor(cursor_factory=DictCursor)