Raw SQL queries in Django views

Question

How would I perform the following using raw SQL in views.py?

from app.models import Picture

def results(request):
    all = Picture.objects.all         


        

Answer 1

The Django Documentation is really really good. You have basically two options to execute raw SQL. You can use Manager.raw() to perform raw queries which return model instances, or you can avoid the model layer and execute custom SQL directly.

Using the raw() manager:

>>> for p in Person.objects.raw('SELECT * FROM myapp_person'):
...     print p
John Smith
Jane Jones

If you want to bypass the model layer directly you can use django.db.connection which represents the default database connection:

def my_custom_sql():
    from django.db import connection, transaction
    cursor = connection.cursor()

    # Data modifying operation - commit required
    cursor.execute("UPDATE bar SET foo = 1 WHERE baz = %s", [self.baz])
    transaction.commit_unless_managed()

    # Data retrieval operation - no commit required
    cursor.execute("SELECT foo FROM bar WHERE baz = %s", [self.baz])
    row = cursor.fetchone()

    return row