Python SQLite equivalent to .tables (one-liner without Pandas)

Question

When using the SQLite executable, I can print to console a list of all the tables in a database with .tables. Is there an equivalent one-liner way to do this in Python using the sqlite3 module without using Pandas?

Based on the answers at List of tables, db schema, dump etc using the Python sqlite3 API, it appears you have to create a cursor first, then a SQL query to return a list of the tables (which is actually a list of tuples as unicode characters that needs to be cleaned for a pretty print to console). That's five lines, versus SQLite's one line.

Or maybe a related question is: why do I need to open a cursor to get this information in Python sqlite3?

con = sqlite3.connect(db)

cursor = con.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table'")
tables = cursor.fetchall()
tables = map(str, [t[0] for t in tables])
print(tables)

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 31 '21 at 23:36

0

It's not pretty, but since you're only using the variables once, you can simply chain all the calls.

print([str(t[0]) for t in sqlite3.connect(db).cursor().execute("SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table'").fetchall()])

answered Mar 31 '21 at 23:36

Barmar

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in other words, there is no way to pass SQLite's `.tables` helper function inside Python? – a11 Apr 01 '21 at 00:42
That was already answered in the question you linked to. – Barmar Apr 01 '21 at 00:53
I did not see that explicitly stated, I must have overlooked someone's answer? – a11 Apr 01 '21 at 00:55
But surely if there were such a simple way to do it, someone would have posted it. – Barmar Apr 01 '21 at 00:56
lol you'd think, but judging by the question and the accepted answer, I have no idea what people think – a11 Apr 01 '21 at 00:58

Python SQLite equivalent to .tables (one-liner without Pandas)

1 Answers1