How to pass a python variable as a sqlite column name in a for-loop

Question

It looks like similar questions have been asked but I didn't find an answer.

The cities in the cities list have corresponding column names in a database. I'm trying to find a specific city's pressure with pyowm, then insert that value into the appropriate column.

The error is that there is not a column named "city". I can see what the problem is but do not know how to fix it. Any help is greatly appreciated!

import pyowm
import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(r"C:\Users\Hanley Smith\Desktop\machinelearning\pressure_table.db")
cursor = conn.cursor()

owm = pyowm.OWM('eb68e3b0c908251771e67882d7a8ddff')

cities = ["tokyo", "jakarta"]

for city in cities:
    weather = owm.weather_at_place(city).get_weather()
    pressure = weather.get_pressure()['press']
    cursor.execute("INSERT INTO PRESSURE (city) values (?)", (pressure,))

conn.commit()

Are you just trying to use a variable as the column name, or the value? — Steve Byrne, Oct 05 '16 at 02:51
@StevenByrne the variable for the column name should be "city" from the "cities" list. The variable for the value should be "pressure" as defined in the for-loop — Hanley Soilsmith, Oct 05 '16 at 03:22

danidee · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-05T03:10:33.170

3

concatenate the variable name with the string like this.

cursor.execute("INSERT INTO PRESSURE (" + city + ") values (?)", (pressure,))

or a much cleaner way with %s

cursor.execute("INSERT INTO PRESSURE (%s) values (?)" % (city), (pressure,))

edited Oct 05 '16 at 03:10

answered Oct 05 '16 at 03:04

danidee

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How to pass a python variable as a sqlite column name in a for-loop

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