python list in sql query as parameter

Question

I have a python list, say l

l = [1,5,8]

I want to write a sql query to get the data for all the elements of the list, say

s         


        

Answer 1

Solution for @umounted answer, because that broke with a one-element tuple, since (1,) is not valid SQL.:

>>> random_ids = [1234,123,54,56,57,58,78,91]
>>> cursor.execute("create table test (id)")
>>> for item in random_ids:
    cursor.execute("insert into test values (%d)" % item)
>>> sublist = [56,57,58]
>>> cursor.execute("select id from test where id in %s" % str(tuple(sublist)).replace(',)',')'))
>>> a = cursor.fetchall()
>>> a
[(56,), (57,), (58,)]

Other solution for sql string:

cursor.execute("select id from test where id in (%s)" % ('"'+'", "'.join(l)+'"'))

Answer 2

Answers so far have been templating the values into a plain SQL string. That's absolutely fine for integers, but if we wanted to do it for strings we get the escaping issue.

Here's a variant using a parameterised query that would work for both:

placeholder= '?' # For SQLite. See DBAPI paramstyle.
placeholders= ', '.join(placeholder for unused in l)
query= 'SELECT name FROM students WHERE id IN (%s)' % placeholders
cursor.execute(query, l)

Answer 3

Just use inline if operation with tuple function:

query = "Select * from hr_employee WHERE id in " % tuple(employee_ids) if len(employee_ids) != 1 else "("+ str(employee_ids[0]) + ")"

Answer 4

placeholders= ', '.join("'{"+str(i)+"}'" for i in range(len(l)))
query="select name from students where id (%s)"%placeholders
query=query.format(*l)
cursor.execute(query)

This should solve your problem.

Answer 5

If you're using PostgreSQL with the Psycopg2 library you can let its tuple adaption do all the escaping and string interpolation for you, e.g:

ids = [1,2,3]
cur.execute(
  "SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id IN %s",
  [tuple(ids)])

i.e. just make sure that you're passing the IN parameter as a tuple. if it's a list you can use the = ANY array syntax:

cur.execute(
  "SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id = ANY (%s)",
  [list(ids)])

note that these both will get turned into the same query plan so you should just use whichever is easier. e.g. if your list comes in a tuple use the former, if they're stored in a list use the latter.

Answer 6

l = [1] # or [1,2,3]

query = "SELECT * FROM table WHERE id IN :l"
params = {'l' : tuple(l)}
cursor.execute(query, params)

The :var notation seems simpler. (Python 3.7)