How to check if record exists with Python MySQdb

Question

Im creating a python program that connects to mysql.

i need to check if a table contains the number 1 to show that it has connected successfully, this is my code thus fa

Answer 1

I recently improved my efficiency by instead of querying select, just adding a primary index to the unique column and then adding it. MySQL will only add it if it doesn't exist.

So instead of 2 statements:

 Query MySQL for exists:
     Query MySQL insert data

Just do 1 and it will only work if it's unique:

Query MySQL insert data

1 Query is better than 2.