Question

I am trying to create a new table in SQLite3 (data coming from a txt file) in a Python script. I am creating a string to use as the SQL command that will give the column headers. However, when I insert the variable for this string into the cursor.execute() I get a syntax error. The thing is, if I print() and then copy and paste that into the cursor.execute, the script works. However, I want to use this same script for various txt files, so it needs to adapt to the column headers in the file.

def CreateTable (daDB, daFile, daTableName): #Creates a table with column headers as   first row of file
    con=sqlite3.connect(daDB)
    curs=con.cursor()
    LinesList=FileReadIn(daFile)
    Headers=LinesList[0]
    HeadersString=""
    for word in Headers:
        HeadersString += word + ", "
    DaHeadersString=HeadersString[0:-2]
    daQuery="'create table " + daTableName + " (" + DaHeadersString + ")'"
    print (daQuery)
    curs.execute(daQuery)
    con.commit()
    con.close()

This generates:

 CreateTableFromText ('animalsheaderstest.sqltdb','animals.txt','animalstable')
'create table animalstable (Owner, Name, Species)'

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#108>", line 1, in <module>
   CreateTable ('animalsheaderstest.sqltdb','animals.txt','animalstable')
  File     "/Users/zeintawil/Zeins_Files/School/Senior/OPIM_399/python/practice/ReadInPrac.py", line     62, in CreateTable
   curs.execute(daQuery)
OperationalError: near "'create table animalstable (Owner, Name, Species)'": syntax error

However, when I copy and paste the value of print(daQuery) directly into the code, it works.

Answer 1

Looks like you have used both single and double quotes. Try like this:

daQuery="create table " + daTableName + " (" + DaHeadersString + ")"