SQLite and coercing to Unicode - please help.
special_dragonfly
Dominic at PLEASEASK.co.uk
Thu Sep 6 07:15:05 EDT 2007
That helped immensely Steve thank you. You're right, this is my first really
big project ever really, not just in Python.
Just to clarify, my UPDATE statement instead of looking like this:
longstring="UPDATE SecB SET
currencyCode='"+Values[1]+"',issuerName='"+Values[2]
"',instrName='"+Values[3]+\
"',instrShortName='"+Values[4]+"',instrType='"+Values[5]+"',secCode='"+Values[6]+\
"',SEDOL='"+Values[7]+"',Date='"+Values[8]+"',SuspendedState='"+Values[9]+\
"',bidPrice='"+Values[10]+"',offerPrice='"+Values[11]+"',midPrice='"+Values[12]+\
"',standardMarketSize='"+Values[13]+"',openOrClosed='"+Values[14]+\
"' WHERE secBoardId='"+Values[0]+"'"
cursor.execute(longstring)
should instead look more like this:
cursor.execute('UPDATE SecB SET
(?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)',tuple(Values[1:])) ?
The Elements list was from a time when it looked less pretty than it does
now, where I iterated through it and didn't catch errors at all.
Thank you again for your help and when it's finished and working I'll repost
it online somewhere for ideas on how to optimise it slightly more!
Dominic
"Steve Holden" <steve at holdenweb.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.143.1189076279.2658.python-list at python.org...
> special_dragonfly wrote:
>> Hello!
>> First, the problem: the program below falls over with the following
>> error:
>> TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, NoneType found.
>> and gives the following line:
>> "' WHERE secBoardId='"+Values[0]+"'"
>> My first thought was that Values[0] was containing nothing at all, that
>> would allow a NoneType to be found, but it has data in that position of
>> the list - you'll see below.
>> So I thought that Values[0] was 'losing' its type somewhere, so I checked
>> it just by having the program print out type(Values[0]), it says it's a
>> string - also seen below.
>> So given it's not a NoneType and it's a string, I don't understand why
>> I'm getting the error. I tried forcing it to a particular type (I think
>> that's the right word), so I put lines like:
>> Values[0]=unicode(Values[0]) or
>> WHERE ... ='"str(Values[0]+"'"
>> but neither worked.
>> I've put my code below, I'm sorry it's so long, I've commented the line
>> where it's falling over.
>> If it's useful, I am using Python 2.5.1, ElementTree 1.2.6 and pySQLite
>> 2.3.5
>> If this is a silly mistake ( one where RTFM is a valid response, can you
>> point me at the place where I can get the answer please?), otherwise any
>> help is greatly appreciated as I'm out of ideas. :(
>> Dominic
>>
> OK, the first problem is that you appear to be obsessing about Values[0]
> when there doesn't appear to be any evidence that value in particular is
> causing the problem. The line number being reported is simply that of the
> last line in a single long statement, and the issue could be anywhere in
> that statement. Sorry, you just have to know (or guess) that, it's not a
> particularly admirable feature of Python.
>
> In point of fact it is the None values that are causing the problem:
>
> $ /usr/bin/python
> Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, May 18 2007, 16:56:43)
> [GCC 3.4.4 (cygming special, gdc 0.12, using dmd 0.125)] on cygwin
> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
> >>> "a string"+None
> Traceback (most recent call last):
> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'NoneType' objects
> >>> u"a string"+None
> Traceback (most recent call last):
> File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> TypeError: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, NoneType found
> >>>
>
> The XML values you are retrieving will be Unicode strings, but you are
> mixing them with plain string values, hence the (somewhat unhelpful) error
> message..
>
> Secondly, you are trying to construct a SQL UPDATE statement yourself,
> instead of parameterising it like you did your INSERT statement. This is
> also usually asking for trouble, and is vulnerable to SQL injection errors
> (use Google if you don't know what they are).
>
> Thirdly, I'm not quite sure why you are using a list for the values, and
> another one for the Elements, when it would seems to make more sense to
> use a named variable for the former and just use the necessary string
> literals for the latter. What's the advantage of using
>
> try:
> branch=dom.getiterator(Elements[1])
> Values.append(branch[0].text) # currencyID
> except:
> Values.append(" "*3)
>
> when you could just as easily say
>
> try:
> branch = dom.getiterator("currencyID")
> currencyID = branch[0].text
> except (..., ..., ...): # see below
> currencyID = " "
>
> The usual shorthand for
>
>
> (Values[0],Values[1],Values[2],Values[3],Values[4],Values[5],\
> Values[6],Values[7],Values[8],Values[9],Values[10],Values[11],\
> Values[12],Values[13],Values[14])
>
> would, by the way, be
>
> tuple(Values)
>
> Note also that your INSERT statement assumes a specific ordering to the
> columns, which is asking for trouble when the database goes into
> production, as a DBA might re-order the fields during a reorganization or
> restructuring of the data, and then your code will break.
>
> Finally, and almost completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, all those
> "except" clauses will catch *absolutely any error* that may occur in your
> code, which is almost always a bad idea, since this behavior will mask
> certain errors that you really want to know about. The XML analysis code
> is frankly pretty horrible, but we can address that issue once you start
> to get some results.
>
> Sorry to bash what could well be your first significant program in Python,
> but my main interest is in setting you off down the right path. It will
> save time and grief in the end. Hope this has helped.
>
> regards
> Steve
>
>>
>> The output:
>> At top of function: GBP/PLUS-ofn-GB00B12T7004
>> Values list contains: ['GBP/PLUS-ofn-GB00B12T7004', u'GBP',
>> u'GB00B12T7004 ', u'All Star Minerals plc ', 'ASMO',
>> 'DE', 'PLUS', u'B12T700', u' ', u'A', None, None, None,
>> '000000000000000000', '0', '0']
>>
>> Type of Values[0] is: <type 'str'>
>>
>> The code:
>> def dealwithSecBRep(text_buffer):
>> # text_buffer contains a sequential string of xml
>>
>> Elements=['secBoardId','currencyId','issuerId','secName','secShortName','secClassId',\
>>
>> 'sectorId','isin','issueDate','inheritedState','bidPrice','offerPrice','midPrice',\
>> 'standardMarketSize','openPrice','closePrice']
>> Values=[]
>> dom=get_a_document(text_buffer) # this function returns an xml
>> document.
>> branch=dom.getiterator(Elements[0])
>> Values.append(GetUniqueId(branch[0])) # Combo of secCode and
>> secBoardId
>> print "At top of function:",Values[0]
>> sql=cursor.execute('SELECT*FROM SecB WHERE
>> secBoardId='+"'"+Values[0]+"'").fetchall()
>> SQL2=sql
>> flag=0
>> if len(sql)>0:
>> #Prior database exists
>> try:
>> branch=dom.getiterator(Elements[1])
>> Values.append(branch[0].text) # currencyID
>> except:
>> value=GetFromDB('currencyCode',text_buffer)
>> Values.append(value)
>> try:
>> branch=dom.getiterator(Elements[2])
>> Values.append(branch[0].text) # issuerName
>> except:
>> value=GetFromDB('issuerName',text_buffer)
>> Values.append(value)
> [other horrible code elided ...]
>
>> try:
>> branch=dom.getiterator(Elements[15])
>>
>> value=string.ljust(string.rjust(branch[0][0].text,10,"0"),18,"0")
>> Values.append(branch[0].text) # Stock Close
>> except:
>> Values.append("0") # Stock Open
>> flag=1
>> if flag==0:
>> print "Values list contains:",Values,"\n"
>> print "Type of Values[0] is:",type(Values[0]),"\n"
>> longstring="UPDATE SecB SET
>> currencyCode='"+Values[1]+"',issuerName='"+Values[2]+"',instrName='"+Values[3]+\
>>
>> "',instrShortName='"+Values[4]+"',instrType='"+Values[5]+"',secCode='"+Values[6]+\
>>
>> "',SEDOL='"+Values[7]+"',Date='"+Values[8]+"',SuspendedState='"+Values[9]+\
>>
>> "',bidPrice='"+Values[10]+"',offerPrice='"+Values[11]+"',midPrice='"+Values[12]+\
>>
>> "',standardMarketSize='"+Values[13]+"',openOrClosed='"+Values[14]+\
>> "' WHERE secBoardId='"+Values[0]+"'" # This is the
>> line it falls over on.
>> cursor.execute(longstring)
>> connection.commit()
>> currentStatus=SQL2[0][13] #current Stock Status
>> if currentStatus==1: # Open
>> if Values[14]!='0': # xml says open
>> oldStart("<secBoardRep>",text_buffer) #5SE
>> elif Values[15]!='0': # xml says closed
>> oldStart("<ClosingRep>",text_buffer)
>> elif Values[14]==0 and Values[15]==0: # neither openPrice nor
>> closePrice exist in xml
>> oldStart("<secBoardRep2>",text_buffer) # just 5ER and 5IS
>> else: # currently Closed
>> if Values[14]!='0': #xml says open
>> oldStart("<OpeningRep>",text_buffer) # 5PR
>> else: #xml says closed
>> oldStart("<secBoard2Rep>",text_buffer) # 5ER,5IS
>> else:
>> cursor.execute('INSERT INTO SecB VALUES
>> (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)',\
>>
>> (Values[0],Values[1],Values[2],Values[3],Values[4],Values[5],\
>>
>> Values[6],Values[7],Values[8],Values[9],Values[10],Values[11],\
>> Values[12],Values[13],Values[14]))
>> connection.commit()
>> if Values[14]!='0': # xml says open
>> test=dom.getiterator('openPrice')
>> oldStart("<secBoard2Rep>",text_buffer) # 5ER, 5IS
>> oldStart("<OpeningRep>",text_buffer) # 5PR
>> else: # xml says closed, or neither options exist.
>> oldStart("<secBoard2Rep>",text_buffer) # 5ER, 5IS
>>
>>
> --
> Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119
> Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
> Skype: holdenweb http://del.icio.us/steve.holden
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