Question

I tried to create a single insert query for the values in template_list array. These values are for field template_name.

dir_template_list = ['template1', 'template2', 'template3']
sql = "INSERT INTO tbltemplate (template_name) VALUES(%s)" % (dir_template_list)

Is there a simple/easier way to create this query using string placeholder?

INSERT INTO tbltemplate (template_name) VALUES ('template1'),('template2'),('template3')

Edit: This is my actual table structure

FIELD   
-------
id             int(6)         
template_name  VARCHAR(128) 

Answer 1

First of all, NEVER use string formatting to create queries – or you’ll risk SQL injection vulnerabilities, have to deal with escaping, etc.

The proper way is to use single queries for every row and passing the data as parameters:

sql = "INSERT INTO tbltemplate (template_name) VALUES (%s)"
for template in dir_template_list:
    conn.query(sql, (template,))

To improve the performance you might want to do this in a transaction or using a prepared statement.