SQL And Python

Last updated May 26, 2023 Edit Source

• Compsci
• Theory
• Databases

• Python is the language you use to define how to solve a problem

• In solving the problem, it is very common to need to access a database

• SQL is the language that we use to define the database problem that needs solving

• Python and most other languages provide modules to allow you to issue SQL commands to a database and read the results back

• This means having one source file with two programming languages in it (Python and SQL)

• Python supports many DBMS

Some examples include:

• SQLite
  • Very basic, single access, limited data types. Included with Python.
• MySQL
  • Very popular, very sophisticated DBMS. Free and used on lots of web servers.
• MS SQL
  • Very popular, very sophisticated. Has a free express version. Used by many businesses and some webservers. Produced by Microsoft.
• Access
  • A graphical database system produced by Microsoft. Highly unrecommended for most use cases. Does not stick to Microsoft standards.

• Connect to the DBMS

• Issue SQL commands or queries

• Read and process results

  • You only need to do this for commands that return a result

• Disconnect from the DBMS

• In some instances it might be more efficient to connect once do lots of commands and then disconnect.

Databases