Syntax Error: SQL INSERT from Python + Scrapy?

Question

Creating a web-scraper in Python 2.6.4 + Scrapy toolkit. Need to do data analysis, but also my first Python learning project. Having trouble creating the SQL INSERT statement in my pipeline.py. The real query has approximately 30 attributes to insert..

First, is there a better way to write this UPDATE or INSERT algorithm? Open to improvements.

Second, here's two different syntax variations and the different errors they produce. I've tried lots of variations based on examples but can't find an example using "INSERT SET" breaking across multiple lines. What is the proper syntax?

DB is empty so we're always branching to 'INSERT' block for now.

def _conditional_insert(self, tx, item):
 # create record if doesn't exist.
 tx.execute("SELECT username  FROM profiles_flat WHERE username = %s", (item['username'][0], ))
 result = tx.fetchone()

 if result:
    # do row UPDATE
     tx.execute( \
        """UPDATE profiles_flat SET
        username=`%s`, 
        headline=`%s`,
        age=`%s`
        WHERE username=`%s`""", (  \
        item['username'],
        item['headline'],
        item['age'],)
        item['username'],)
     )         
 else: 
   # do row INSERT
   tx.execute( \
   """INSERT INTO profiles_flat SET
        username=`%s`, 
        headline=`%s`,
        age=`%s` """, ( \
        item['username'],
        item['headline'],
        item['age'], )   # line 222
   )

Error:

[Failure instance: Traceback: <class '_mysql_exceptions.OperationalError'>: (1054, "Unknown column ''missLovely92 '' in 'field list'")
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:497:__bootstrap
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:525:__bootstrap_inner
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:477:run
  --- <exception caught here> ---
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/threadpool.py:210:_worker
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/context.py:59:callWithContext
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/context.py:37:callWithContext
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/enterprise/adbapi.py:429:_runInteraction
  /export/home/raven/scrapy/project/project/pipelines.py:222:_conditional_insert
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/MySQLdb/cursors.py:166:execute
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/MySQLdb/connections.py:35:defaulterrorhandler
  ]

Alternative Syntax:

  query = """INSERT INTO profiles_flat SET
        username=`%s`, 
        headline=`%s`,
        age=`%s` """ % \
   item['username'], # line 196
   item['headline'],
   item['age']

   tx.execute(query)

Error:

  [Failure instance: Traceback: <type 'exceptions.TypeError'>: not enough arguments for format string
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:497:__bootstrap
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:525:__bootstrap_inner
  /usr/lib/python2.6/threading.py:477:run
  --- <exception caught here> ---
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/threadpool.py:210:_worker
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/context.py:59:callWithContext
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/python/context.py:37:callWithContext
  /usr/lib/python2.6/vendor-packages/twisted/enterprise/adbapi.py:429:_runInteraction
  /export/home/raven/scrapy/project/project/pipelines.py:196:_conditional_insert
  ]    

Answer 1

You shouldn't surround values with backticks. Backticks are used to quote column names.

INSERT INTO profiles_flat (username, headline, age)
VALUES (%s, %s, %s)