[python] Executing "SELECT ... WHERE ... IN ..." using MySQLdb

I'm having a problem executing some SQL from within Python, despite similar SQL working fine from the mysql command-line.

The table looks like this:

mysql> SELECT * FROM foo;
+-------+-----+
| fooid | bar |
+-------+-----+
|     1 | A   | 
|     2 | B   | 
|     3 | C   | 
|     4 | D   | 
+-------+-----+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

I can execute the following SQL query from the mysql command-line, without a problem:

mysql> SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN ('A','C');
SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN ('A','C');
+-------+
| fooid |
+-------+
|     1 | 
|     3 | 
+-------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

However, when I try to do the same from within Python, I get no rows, while I expected 2 rows:

import MySQLdb
import config
connection=MySQLdb.connect(
    host=config.HOST,user=config.USER,passwd=config.PASS,db='test')
cursor=connection.cursor()

sql='SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN %s'
args=[['A','C']]
cursor.execute(sql,args)
data=cursor.fetchall()
print(data)
# ()

So the question is: how should the python code be modified to select those fooids where bar is in ('A','C')?

By the way, I noticed that if I switch the roles of bar and fooid, I can get the code to select those bars where fooid is in (1,3) successfully. I don't understand why one such query (below) works, while the other one (above) doesn't.

sql='SELECT bar FROM foo WHERE fooid IN %s'
args=[[1,3]]
cursor.execute(sql,args)
data=cursor.fetchall()
print(data)
# (('A',), ('C',))

And just to be absolutely clear, this is how the foo table was created:

mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS foo;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE `foo` (
          `fooid` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
          `bar` varchar(10) NOT NULL,
          PRIMARY KEY (`fooid`));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> INSERT into foo (bar) values ('A'),('B'),('C'),('D');
Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

Edit: When I enable the general query log with mysqld -l /tmp/myquery.log I see

mysqld, Version: 5.1.37-1ubuntu5.5-log ((Ubuntu)). started with:
Tcp port: 3306  Unix socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
Time                 Id Command    Argument
110101 11:45:41     1 Connect   unutbu@localhost on test
            1 Query set autocommit=0
            1 Query SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN ("'A'", "'C'")
            1 Query SELECT bar FROM foo WHERE fooid IN ('1', '3')
            1 Quit

Indeed, it looks like too many quotes are being placed around A and C.

Thanks to @Amber's comment, I understand better what is going wrong. MySQLdb converts the parametrized argument ['A','C'] to ("'A'","'C'").

Is there a way to make a parametrized query using the IN SQL syntax? Or must one manually construct the SQL string?

This question is related to python mysql

The answer is


this works for me:

myTuple= tuple(myList)
sql="select fooid from foo where bar in "+str(myTuple)
cursor.execute(sql)

args should be tuple.

eg:

args = ('A','B')

args = ('A',) # in case of single

Why not just this in that case?

args = ['A', 'C']
sql = 'SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN (%s)' 
in_p  =', '.join(list(map(lambda arg:  "'%s'" % arg, args)))
sql = sql % in_p
cursor.execute(sql)

results in:

SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN ('A', 'C')

Unfortunately, you need to manually construct the query parameters, because as far as I know, there is no built-in bind method for binding a list to an IN clause, similar to Hibernate's setParameterList(). However, you can accomplish the same with the following:

Python 3:

args=['A', 'C']
sql='SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN (%s)' 
in_p=', '.join(list(map(lambda x: '%s', args)))
sql = sql % in_p
cursor.execute(sql, args)

Python 2:

args=['A', 'C']
sql='SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN (%s)' 
in_p=', '.join(map(lambda x: '%s', args))
sql = sql % in_p
cursor.execute(sql, args)

Very simple:

Just use the below formation###

rules_id = ["9","10"]

sql2 = "SELECT * FROM attendance_rules_staff WHERE id in"+str(tuple(rules_id))

note the str(tuple(rules_id)).


Have been trying every variation on João's solution to get an IN List query to work with Tornado's mysql wrapper, and was still getting the accursed "TypeError: not enough arguments for format string" error. Turns out adding "*" to the list var "*args" did the trick.

args=['A', 'C']
sql='SELECT fooid FROM foo WHERE bar IN (%s)'
in_p=', '.join(list(map(lambda x: '%s', args)))
sql = sql % in_p
db.query(sql, *args)

If you have other parameters in the query, beyond the IN list, then the following extension to JG's answer may be useful.

ids = [1, 5, 7, 213]
sql = "select * from person where type=%s and id in (%s)"
in_ids = ', '.join(map(lambda x: '%s', ids))
sql = sql % ('%s', in_ids)
params = []
params.append(type)
params.extend(ids)
cursor.execute(sql, tuple(params))

That is, join all the params in a linear array, then pass it as a tuple to the execute method.


Maybe we can create a function to do what João proposed? Something like:

def cursor_exec(cursor, query, params):
    expansion_params= []
    real_params = []
    for p in params:
       if isinstance(p, (tuple, list)):
         real_params.extend(p)
         expansion_params.append( ("%s,"*len(p))[:-1] )
       else:
         real_params.append(p)
         expansion_params.append("%s")
    real_query = query % expansion_params
    cursor.execute(real_query, real_params)

Improving on João's and satru's code, I suggest creating a cursor mixin that can be used to build a cursor with an execute that accepts nested iterables and handles them correctly. A better name would be nice, though... For Python3, use str instead of basestring.

from MySQLdb.cursors import Cursor

class BetterExecuteMixin(object):
    """
    This mixin class provides an implementation of the execute method
    that properly handles sequence arguments for use with IN tests.
    Examples:
    execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id IN (%s) AND type=%s', ([1,2,3], 'bar'))
    # Notice that when the sequence is the only argument, you still need
    # a surrounding tuple:
    execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id IN (%s)', ([1,2,3],))
    """

    def execute(self, query, args=None):
        if args is not None:
            try:
                iter(args)
            except TypeError:
                args = (args,)
            else:
                if isinstance(args, basestring):
                    args = (args,)
            real_params = []
            placeholders = []
            for arg in args:
                # sequences that we treat as a single argument
                if isinstance(arg, basestring):
                    real_params.append(arg)
                    placeholders.append('%s')
                    continue
                try:
                    real_params.extend(arg)
                    placeholders.append(','.join(['%s']*len(arg)))
                except TypeError:
                    real_params.append(arg)
                    placeholders.append('%s')
            args = real_params
            query = query % tuple(placeholders)
        return super(BetterExecuteMixin, self).execute(query, args)

class BetterCursor(BetterExecuteMixin, Cursor):
    pass

This can then be used as follows (and it's still backwards compatible!):

import MySQLdb
conn = MySQLdb.connect(user='user', passwd='pass', db='dbname', host='host',
                       cursorclass=BetterCursor)
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id IN (%s) AND type=%s', ([1,2,3], 'bar'))
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id IN (%s)', ([1,2,3],))
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE type IN (%s)', (['bar', 'moo'],))
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE type=%s', 'bar')
cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE type=%s', ('bar',))