How can I create a SQLite table using the sqlite3 Python library with parameterized placeholders?

Question

From Python's documentation (https://docs.python.org/3/library/sqlite3.html#sqlite3.Cursor.execute), I should be able to execute SQL statements using parameterized placeholders. Yet, the code below doesn't work.

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect("temp.db")
c = conn.cursor()

c.execute("create table ? (foo text, bar text)", ("table_name",))

conn.commit()
conn.close()

I'm getting an error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 6, in <module>
    c.execute("create table ? (foo text, bar text)", ("table_name",))
sqlite3.OperationalError: near "?": syntax error

But if I switch out of using parameterized placeholders, it works.

Mureinik · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-29 17:37:57Z

1

In a word - no. You can only parameterize values, not object names (in this case, the table's name). If you want to do something like this, you'd have to resort to string manipulation, e.g.:

c.execute("create table %s (foo text, bar text)" % ("table_name"))

answered Dec 29, 2018 at 17:37

Mureinik

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1 Comment

Fabian Over a year ago

Thanks! I'm just learning SQL so I never realized the distinction between values and objects.

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