.. rst-class:: core-header, orm-addin

The start of any SQLAlchemy application is an object called the :class:`_engine.Engine`. This object acts as a central source of connections to a particular database, providing both a factory as well as a holding space called a :ref:`connection pool <pooling_toplevel>` for these database connections. The engine is typically a global object created just once for a particular database server, and is configured using a URL string which will describe how it should connect to the database host or backend.

For this tutorial we will use an in-memory-only SQLite database. This is an easy way to test things without needing to have an actual pre-existing database set up. The :class:`_engine.Engine` is created by using the :func:`_sa.create_engine` function:

>>> from sqlalchemy import create_engine
>>> engine = create_engine("sqlite+pysqlite:///:memory:", echo=True)

The main argument to :class:`_sa.create_engine` is a string URL, above passed as the string "sqlite+pysqlite:///:memory:". This string indicates to the :class:`_engine.Engine` three important facts:

1. What kind of database are we communicating with? This is the sqlite portion above, which links in SQLAlchemy to an object known as the :term:`dialect`.
2. What :term:`DBAPI` are we using? The Python :term:`DBAPI` is a third party driver that SQLAlchemy uses to interact with a particular database. In this case, we're using the name pysqlite, which in modern Python use is the sqlite3 standard library interface for SQLite. If omitted, SQLAlchemy will use a default :term:`DBAPI` for the particular database selected.
3. How do we locate the database? In this case, our URL includes the phrase /:memory:, which is an indicator to the sqlite3 module that we will be using an in-memory-only database. This kind of database is perfect for experimenting as it does not require any server nor does it need to create new files.

We have also specified a parameter :paramref:`_sa.create_engine.echo`, which will instruct the :class:`_engine.Engine` to log all of the SQL it emits to a Python logger that will write to standard out. This flag is a shorthand way of setting up :ref:`Python logging more formally <dbengine_logging>` and is useful for experimentation in scripts. Many of the SQL examples will include this SQL logging output beneath a [SQL] link that when clicked, will reveal the full SQL interaction.