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pythonpostgresqlpsycopg2python-db-api

Inserting multiple rows using psycopg2


According to psycopg2: insert multiple rows with one query, it is much more efficient to use psycopg2's execute instead of executemany . Can others confirm?

The above StackOverflow question suggests using mogrify for creating statements of the sort:

INSERT INTO table VALUES (value1, value2), (value3, value4)

Is it possible to generate such a statement using the regular execute function? I thought something of the form

cursor.execute("""INSERT INTO table VALUES (%s, %s), (%s, %s)""", ((value1,value2),(value3,value4)))

would work.

UPDATE:

For instance, I tried I passing into execute the sql statement:

insert into history (timestamp) values (%s),(%s); 

with the folowing tuple:

(('2014-04-27 14:07:30.000000',), ('2014-04-27 14:07:35.000000',))

but all I got back was the error:

no results to fetch


Solution

  • To use the execute method place the data to be inserted in a list. A list will be adapted by psycopg2 to an array. Then you unnest the array and cast the values as necessary

    import psycopg2
    
    insert = """
        insert into history ("timestamp")
        select value
        from unnest(%s) s(value timestamp)
        returning *
    ;"""
    
    data = [('2014-04-27 14:07:30.000000',), ('2014-04-27 14:07:35.000000',)]
    conn = psycopg2.connect("host=localhost4 port=5432 dbname=cpn")
    cursor = conn.cursor()
    cursor.execute(insert, (data,))
    print cursor.fetchall()
    conn.commit()
    conn.close()
    

    Not sure if the performance difference from executemany will be significant. But I think the above is neater. The returning clause will, as the name suggests, return the inserted tuples.

    BTW timestamp is a reserved word and should not be used as a column name.