Simple Python SQL Query

Question

Simply trying to build a sql query to execute from python. Getting SQL syntax error.

for elem in phraseList:
 cursor.execute("SELECT PHRASE,COUNT(ID) FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%PRT%' \
 AND ID IN (SELECT DISTINCT ID FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%COND%' \
 AND PHRASE LIKE (%s)),(elem)")

However note that when I execute the following (it works perfectly fine):

for elem in phraseList:
 cursor.execute("SELECT PHRASE,COUNT(ID) FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%PRT%' \
 AND ID IN (SELECT DISTINCT ID FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%COND%' \
 AND PHRASE LIKE '%dmg'")

Answer 1

You need to make elem a separate parameter, not part of the query string:

cursor.execute("SELECT PHRASE,COUNT(ID) FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%PRT%' \
 AND ID IN (SELECT DISTINCT ID FROM TEST.NERD WHERE LABEL LIKE '%COND%' \
 AND PHRASE LIKE %s", (elem,))

That last parameter needs to be a tuple with one element, and to create one of those you need to have that one comma there too.

• Yavar: I have posted another problem that I am facing here now stackoverflow.com/questions/16435676/python-sql-valueerror . Thanks for your help once again.
• Martijn Pieters: I'm sorry that I didn't catch on to the %PART%, etc. problem there; should have realized this could be the MySQLdb adapter. Answered there.