passing a python variable into a mysql select statement

Question

Hi I have the following block of code that is meant to take the variable 'search_value'and pass it into the WHERE clause of a mysql select statement

 import MySQLdb
 search_term = input('Enter your search term: ')
 print (search_term)
 conn = MySQLdb.connect(my connection info)
 c = conn.cursor()
 q = "SELECT * FROM courses WHERE course_area = %(value)s "
 params = {'value': search_term}
 c.execute(q, params)
 rows = c.fetchall()
 for eachRow in rows:
 print (eachRow)

I know that I need to use %s somewhere but I'm not sure of the exact syntax. I did some searching online but I have only found examples of insert statement...and I know they have a little different syntax. Thanks

Answer 1

This should work:

q = "SELECT * FROM courses WHERE course_area = %(value)s "
params = {'value':'some_value_here'}
c.execute(q, params)
.....

• Matthew Tuman: Thanks...I had to remove the single quotes around some_value_here but other than that it works perfectly. I edited my code to reflect the changes.
• gold_cy: yea it doesn't have to be a string I simply put quotes around it to indicate it was some random value, and you're welcome