Python AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'cursor'

Question

Today is my 3rd day learning Python and despite numerous web searches I can't seem to get past this issue.

The code takes in input on the command line and passes it to the connection script fine and it connects. The problem comes when I try to connect the cursor to the connection object on the line that reads: cor = con.cursor() . I get the error message: AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'cursor' . Basically all I'm trying to do is take in parameters for my connection string to connect to the database and then be able to run my query. I request anyone helping me to bear in mind I'm a starter so detailed answers would be very helpful. Thanks in advance.

Code below:

import pyodbc
import getpass
import sys
server_name = input('Enter Server Name: ')
database_name = input('Enter Database Name: ')
uid = input('Enter User ID: ')
password = getpass.getpass("Enter your password: ")
querystring = "select top 1 * from SomeTable"
conStr = ('pyodbc.connect'+"('DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=%s;DATABASE=%s;UID=%s;PWD=%s')") % (server_name, database_name, uid, password)
con = conStr
cur = con.cursor()   #Generates error on this line
cur.execute(querystring)
rows = cur.fetchall()
for row in rows:
    print(row)

Answer 1

This is just a concatenation of two strings, so a string (the parenthesis don't matter):

('pyodbc.connect'+"('blah')")

And string % (value, value) takes the left side string as a printf-style format string and inserts the given values in it. The result again is a string, so your conStr is just a string. A string that probably looks like a Python function call, but a string nonetheless.

I think you want to just call pyodbc.connect() :

con = pyodbc.connect(
      'DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=%s;DATABASE=%s;UID=%s;PWD=%s' % 
      (server_name, database_name, uid, password))

Though I'm not sure about the syntax of the strint it expects as argument. At least according to this that looks about fine.