MySQLdb DictCursor scrambles field order

[Chris Gonnerman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "HW" <google at thegoldensun.com>


> Hello,
> 
> I am viewing some MySQL tables via Python CGI; I use the
> MySQLdb.DictCursor in order to return the field names as well as the
> data, so I can output a table with the field names as column headings.
> 
> Unfortunately, the DictCursor seems to scramble the order of fields,
> eg:
> "SELECT field1, field2, field3 FROM table"
> which returns the fields in order when using a standard cursor, seems
> to rearrange the order (randomly?) with a DictCursor.

What else did you expect?  The fields are returned in the form of a 
mapping, which has no required or inate order to it.  It's a hash.

Again, why do you care?  Are you iterating over the fields using the 
record's .keys() method?  Keep track of the keys in a list if you need 
a specific order:

    keys = [ "field1", "field2", "field3" ]

    recs = cursor.fetchall()

    for record in recs:
        for key in keys:
            print "%s: %s" % (key, record[key])

(sloppy example I know...  hacked it out in a hurry.)

> I am using MySQLdb 0.9.1, Python 2.1, 3.23.51-nt under Win XP; I have
> had the same trouble in a similarly numbered Linux version.
> 
> Thanks for any help!
> 
> HW

Chris Gonnerman -- chris.gonnerman at newcenturycomputers.net
http://newcenturycomputers.net