[DB-SIG] pyformat Parameter Style

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Magnus Lyckå wrote:
> At Sat, 10 May 2003 19:54:30 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> 
>>> On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 10:23 US/Pacific, Andy Todd wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is there a definitive specification of the pyformat parameter style 
>>>> anywhere?
>>>>
>>>> The usual sources come up dry. It is mentioned in the DB-API 
>>>> specification (http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0249.html) but not 
>>>> defined.
>>>>
>>>> It seems from observation that one should simply put '%(<parameter 
>>>> name>)s' in the query string and then pass a mapping with a 
>>>> corresponding key when calling the execute method. But I'd just like 
>>>> to make absolutely sure.
>>>>
>>>> In particular, I'm curious if the 's' actually means anything (like 
>>>> string?). Should I be using different characters for different data 
>>>> types, and if so, which ones?
>>
>>
>> The DB API says "Python extended format codes" meaning that all
>> valid Python formatting codes (including their parameters) may
>> be used.
> 
> I've heard repeatedly that only %s should be used. This is the
> first time I've heard someone contradict this (however reasonable
> it seems). Maybe this should be clarified in the spec? (No, it's
> not clear if people misunderstand it reagrdless of what words in
> the text you can point to. ;)

Looks like I ought to update the PEP then. Can you suggest
a wording ?

> Is it just because of a misunderstanding that a number of drivers
> get this wrong, or is there some reason to turn integers and strings
> into floats.

You probably mean: floats into strings.

I think the reason is that those drivers don't support binding
in the sense that the SQL statement and the data are sent to
the database as two separate entities.

However, I don't understand why the current implementations
don't use Python's wealth of format characters (and it's formatting
implementation).

That said, I still think that positional binding is by far
the easiest to use and understand way of binding variables.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

Professional Python Software directly from the Source  (#1, May 13 2003)
 >>> Python/Zope Products & Consulting ...         http://www.egenix.com/
 >>> mxODBC, mxDateTime, mxTextTools ...        http://python.egenix.com/
________________________________________________________________________
EuroPython 2003, Charleroi, Belgium:                        42 days left