Issues using python's string formatting libraries

Question

cur.execute('INSERT INTO company VALUES (%(cname), %(symbol), %(start_date), %(end_date))' %{'cname' : company, 'symbol' : company, 'start_date' : startdate, 'end_date' : enddate})

Trying to run this line on my computer results in a string formatting error: ValueError: unsupported format character ',' (0x2c) at index 36

It seems to be concerning the , but I have checked and all the parenthesis are properly nested (none enclosing an errant ,)

This is not how you're supposed to do it.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
– Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

2011-10-18 04:06:18 +00:00
Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 4:06 — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
– Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 4:06

imm · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-18 04:05:31Z

17

You need an "s" after each of those positional arguments.

(%(cname)s, %(symbol)s,  ....

answered Oct 18, 2011 at 4:05

imm

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1 Comment

rjurney Over a year ago

You saved me hours of debugging. God bless you, sir. This also applies to Postgres using psycopg2 :)

sberry · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-18 04:07:34Z

3

What @imm said. Also, you may want to use the built in query formatting that is part of MySQLdb.

cur.execute("INSERT INTO company VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)", (company, company, startdate, enddate))

answered Oct 18, 2011 at 4:07

sberry

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1 Comment

Alberto Megía Over a year ago

This response is valid but also you may want to map columns as @imm sais in his response, using dicts. Very confortable way to do it

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