Named Entity Recognition 26.3
Named Entity Recognition User and Programming Guide

# Python API Concepts

The Named Entity Recognition SDK provides a Python API that enables your application to create an extraction engine and perform entity extractions.

This section describes the concepts used to write Python applications with the Named Entity Recognition EDK.

The Python SDK consists of:

- A Python wheel, `edk-version-py3-none-any.whl` (where `version` is the version number).

- `edk.dll` (Windows) or `libedk.so` (MacOS and Linux), which performs the Named Entity Recognition functionality.

## Installation

Install the Python EDK package from the wheel by using the Python `pip` package manager tool:

    pip install bin/edk-version-py3-none-any.whl

The package relies on the C EDK shared library (`edk.dll` or `libedk.so`). This library must be in one of the following locations:

- a directory on the system library path

- a location that you pass to the Python API by setting the `EDKLIBPATH` environment variable before you import the package from your Python code.

NOTE: You might also need additional runtime libraries to run the Named Entity Recognition SDK. See Named Entity Recognition SDK Package.

## Package Structure

The `edk` module provides a Python interface to Named Entity Recognition. It is split into submodules:

- `edk.api` contains direct Python bindings for each function in the C EDK shared library.

- `edk.sdk` contains classes that wrap the API calls to expose Named Entity Recognition functionality through a more python-like interface.

- `edk.tool` can be run as a script to perform simple command-line Named Entity Recognition operations.

In most cases, you use the classes provided by the `edk.sdk` module.

## Concurrency Control

Concurrency in Named Entity Recognition is handled using sessions, represented by an `EdkSession` object.

You create an instance of an `EdkEngine` object with a configuration file that describes the grammars and settings that you want to use for entity extraction. You can create multiple `EdkSession` objects from this engine, each of which use the same grammars and settings as the parent engine. Each session maintains its state independent of others.

## Character Encoding

The underlying `edk.dll` library and grammars require that all your input is UTF-8 encoded. The low-level `edk.api` functions accept data as Python `bytes` or `bytearray` objects, which must contain UTF-8 encoded text.

The higher-level `edk.sdk` class methods accept either raw byte data, or regular Unicode Python strings (`str` objects).

When you set an input stream, you can provide either a byte stream (derived from `io.BufferedIOBase`) or a text stream (derived from `io.TextIOBase`). The Named Entity Recognition Python SDK classes automatically handle encoding conversion.

By default, functions return text values as the same type used for input (`bytes` or `str`). Some of the available metadata that the SDK returns represent offsets in the input. The functions return these values as byte counts when you use byte input, and as Unicode character counts when you use Unicode strings as input.

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Version 26.3 | Last updated July 2026

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Named Entity Recognition 26.3

Topic Title: Python API Concepts