Update a PostgreSQL array using SQLAlchemy

Question

I\'m trying to update an integer array on a PostgreSQL table using a SQL statement in SQLAlchemy Core. I first tried using the query generator, but couldn\'t figure out how to d

Answer 1

If your table is defined like this:

from datetime import datetime
from sqlalchemy import *
from sqlalchemy.dialects.postgresql import ARRAY

meta = MetaData()
surveys_table = Table('surveys', meta,
    Column('surveys_id', Integer, primary_key=True),
    Column('questions_ids_ordered', ARRAY(Integer)),
    Column('created_at', DateTime, nullable=False, default=datetime.utcnow)
)

Then you can simply update your array in the following way (works with psycopg2):

engine = create_engine('postgresql://localhost')
conn = engine.connect()
u = surveys_table.update().where(surveys_table.c.id == 46).\
     values(questions_ids_ordered=[237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243])
conn.execute(u)
conn.close()

Or, if you prefer, write raw SQL using text() construct:

from sqlalchemy.sql import text
with engine.connect() as conn:
    u = text('UPDATE surveys SET questions_ids_ordered = :q WHERE id = :id')
    conn.execute(u, q=[237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243], id=46)