Strange SQLAlchemy error message: TypeError: 'dict' object does not support indexing

Question

I am using hand crafted SQL to fetch data from a PG database, using SqlAlchemy. I am trying a query which contains the SQL like operator \'%\' and that seems to throw SqlAlc

Answer 1

Another way of solving your problem, if you don't want to escape % characters or use sqlalchemy.text(), is to use a regular expression.

Instead of:

select id from ref_geog where short_name LIKE '%opt'

Try (for case-sensitive match):

select id from ref_geog where short_name ~ 'opt$' 

or (for case-insensitive):

select id from ref_geog where short_name ~* 'opt$'

Both LIKE and regex are covered in the documentation on pattern matching.

Note that:

Unlike LIKE patterns, a regular expression is allowed to match anywhere within a string, unless the regular expression is explicitly anchored to the beginning or end of the string.

For an anchor, you can use the assertion $ for end of string (or ^ for beginning).