python list in sql query as parameter

Question

I have a python list, say l

l = [1,5,8]

I want to write a sql query to get the data for all the elements of the list, say

s         


        

Answer 1

I like bobince's answer:

placeholder= '?' # For SQLite. See DBAPI paramstyle.
placeholders= ', '.join(placeholder for unused in l)
query= 'SELECT name FROM students WHERE id IN (%s)' % placeholders
cursor.execute(query, l)

But I noticed this:

placeholders= ', '.join(placeholder for unused in l)

Can be replaced with:

placeholders= ', '.join(placeholder*len(l))

I find this more direct if less clever and less general. Here l is required to have a length (i.e. refer to an object that defines a __len__ method), which shouldn't be a problem. But placeholder must also be a single character. To support a multi-character placeholder use:

placeholders= ', '.join([placeholder]*len(l))