MySQL Dynamic Query Statement in Python with Dictionary - mysql

Question

Very similar to this question MySQL Dynamic Query Statement in Python
However what I am looking to do instead of two lists is to use a dictionary
Let's say i have this dictionary
instance_insert = {
# sql column variable value
'instance_id' : 'instnace.id',
'customer_id' : 'customer.id',
'os' : 'instance.platform',
}
And I want to populate a mysql database with an insert statement using sql column as the sql column name and the variable name as the variable that will hold the value that is to be inserted into the mysql table.
Kind of lost because I don't understand exactly what this statement does, but was pulled from the question that I posted where he was using two lists to do what he wanted.
sql = "INSERT INTO instance_info_test VALUES (%s);" % ', '.join('?' for _ in instance_insert)
cur.execute (sql, instance_insert)
Also I would like it to be dynamic in the sense that I can add/remove columns to the dictionary

Answer 1

Before you post, you might want to try searching for something more specific to your question. For instance, when I Googled "python mysqldb insert dictionary", I found a good answer on the first page, at http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tutor/2010-December/080701.html. Relevant part:
Here's what I came up with when I tried to make a generalized version
of the above:
def add_row(cursor, tablename, rowdict):
# XXX tablename not sanitized
# XXX test for allowed keys is case-sensitive
# filter out keys that are not column names
cursor.execute("describe %s" % tablename)
allowed_keys = set(row[0] for row in cursor.fetchall())
keys = allowed_keys.intersection(rowdict)
if len(rowdict) > len(keys):
unknown_keys = set(rowdict) - allowed_keys
print >> sys.stderr, "skipping keys:", ", ".join(unknown_keys)
columns = ", ".join(keys)
values_template = ", ".join(["%s"] * len(keys))
sql = "insert into %s (%s) values (%s)" % (
tablename, columns, values_template)
values = tuple(rowdict[key] for key in keys)
cursor.execute(sql, values)
filename = ...
tablename = ...
db = MySQLdb.connect(...)
cursor = db.cursor()
with open(filename) as instream:
row = json.load(instream)
add_row(cursor, tablename, row)
Peter
If you know your inputs will always be valid (table name is valid, columns are present in the table), and you're not importing from a JSON file as the example is, you can simplify this function. But it'll accomplish what you want to accomplish. While it may initially seem like DictCursor would be helpful, it looks like DictCursor is useful for returning a dictionary of values, but it can't execute from a dict.