Inserting time into MS Access with python odbc

Question

I'm trying to store the current time in my access database with the following script:

import pyodbc
import time

connStr = """
DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb, *.accdb)};
DBQ=C:/Users/QPCS Registration/Documents/DB Tests/PYODBC.accdb;
"""
cnxn = pyodbc.connect(connStr)
cursor = cnxn.cursor()  

def TimeStamp():
    RFID = str(input("Please tap your pass on the reader:\n"))
    Current_Time = str(time.strftime("%H:%M"))
    cursor.execute('INSERT INTO Time_Of_Entry(RFID_Number,Time_Tapped) VALUES('+RFID+','+Current_Time+');')
    cnxn.commit()

def Close_DB_Cnxn():
    cnxn.close()

TimeStamp()
Close_DB_Cnxn()

When I run it I get the following error:

pyodbc.ProgrammingError: ('42000', "[42000] [Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Syntax error (missing operator) in query expression '19:44'. (-3100) (SQLExecDirectW)")

The problem is definitely with 'Current_Time', because when I try to store the variable 'RFID' with the script shown below, it inserts into the database just fine.

cursor.execute('INSERT INTO Time_Of_Entry(RFID_Number) VALUES('+RFID+');')

I have tried changing the data type of the field 'Time_Tapped' in the table 'Time_Of_Entry' from Short Text, to Date/Time;Short Time but that has had no effect.

My machine is running on windows 7 home premium 64-bit. I have Microsoft office 2010; 32-bit I'm running python 3.3; 32-bit

Answer 1

Parameterized queries are useful for both INSERT queries and SELECT queries when Date/Time values are involved. Instead of messing with date/time formats and delimiters you just pass the Date/Time value as a parameter and let the data access layer (ODBC in this case) sort it out.

The following example works for me:

from datetime import datetime, time
import pypyodbc

rfid = "GORD123"  ## for testing

now = datetime.now()
currentTime = datetime(1899, 12, 30, now.hour, now.minute)

connStr = """
Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb, *.accdb)};
Dbq=C:/Users/Public/Database1.accdb;
"""
cnxn = pypyodbc.connect(connStr)
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
sql = """
INSERT INTO Time_Of_Entry (RFID_Number, Time_Tapped) VALUES (?, ?)
"""
parameters = (rfid, currentTime)
cursor.execute(sql, parameters)
cursor.close()
cnxn.commit()
cnxn.close()

Notes:

1. I used pypyodbc instead of pyodbc because I was using Python 3.4.3 and the latest pyodbc installer for Windows choked when it couldn't find Python 3.3. To get pypyodbc all I had to do was run pip install pypyodbc .

2. All date/time values in Access have both a date and time component. In order for a date/time value to appear by default as time-only in Access we need to assign it the "magic" date 1899-12-30. (That's the date corresponding to CDate(0) in Access.)