Inserting multiple rows using psycopg2

Question

According to psycopg2: insert multiple rows with one query, it is much more efficient to use psycopg2\'s execute instead of executemany . Can others confirm?

The abo

Answer 1

To use the execute method place the data to be inserted in a list. A list will be adapted by psycopg2 to an array. Then you unnest the array and cast the values as necessary

import psycopg2

insert = """
    insert into history ("timestamp")
    select value
    from unnest(%s) s(value timestamp)
    returning *
;"""

data = [('2014-04-27 14:07:30.000000',), ('2014-04-27 14:07:35.000000',)]
conn = psycopg2.connect("host=localhost4 port=5432 dbname=cpn")
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute(insert, (data,))
print cursor.fetchall()
conn.commit()
conn.close()

Not sure if the performance difference from executemany will be significant. But I think the above is neater. The returning clause will, as the name suggests, return the inserted tuples.

BTW timestamp is a reserved word and should not be used as a column name.