MySQLdb adding character b infront of strings that have been escaped - Python

Question

I am trying to write a simple Python script to bulk add movie titles into a local database, using the MySQLdb (mysqlclient) package. I am reading the titles from a TSV file. But when go to sanitize the inputs using MySQLdb::escape_string(), I get the character b before my string. I believe this means that SQL is interpreting it as a bit value, but when I go to execute my query I get the following error:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'b'Bowery to Bagdad',1955)' at line 1"

The select statement in question:

INSERT INTO movies (imdb_id, title, release_year) VALUES ('tt0044388',b'Bowery to Bagdad',1955)

def TSV_to_SQL(file_to_open):
    from MySQLdb import _mysql

    db=_mysql.connect(host='localhost', user='root', passwd='', db='tutorialdb', charset='utf8')
    
    q = """SELECT * FROM user_id"""
    # MySQLdb.escape_string()
    # db.query(q)
    # results = db.use_result()
    # print(results.fetch_row(maxrows=0, how=1))
    print("starting?")
    with open(file_to_open, encoding="utf8") as file:
        tsv = csv.reader(file, delimiter="\t")
        count = 0
        for line in tsv:
            if count == 10:
                break
            # print(MySQLdb.escape_string(line[1]))
            statement = "INSERT INTO movies (imdb_id, title, release_year) VALUES ('{imdb_id}',{title},{year})\n".format(
                imdb_id=line[0], title=MySQLdb.escape_string(line[1]), year=line[2])
            # db.query(statement)
            print(statement)
            count = count + 1

I know a simple solution would be to just remove the character b from the start of the string, but I was wondering if there was a more proper way, or if I missed something in documentation.

Answer 1

The 'b' infront of the string represents that the string is binary encoded rather than a literal string. If you use .encode() you will be able to get what you want. How to convert 'binary string' to normal string in Python3?