Question

This is a sample list (each line has variable elements) :

['1', 'Tech', 'Code']
['2', 'Edu']
['3', 'Money', 'Sum', '176']

I have to insert this into a MySQL table which has 4 columns (max num. of elements in a value in a list).

How to do this efficiently? I have a feeling my solution is the least efficient!

Here is my solution :

for eachval in mylistings:       #mylistings has the sample list elements described above
     mylen = len(eachval)
     defaultlist = [None]*4   #reset defaultlist to 'None' to handle variable no. of columns
     ctr = 0
     for myoneval in mylistingline:
          defaultlist[ctr] = myoneval
          ctr += 1

for finalval in defaultlist:     #finally inserting them into a MySQL table
            cursor.execute("INSERT INTO LoadData VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)", (finalval[0], finalval[1], finalval[2], finalval[3]))

Answer 1

How about this?

for line in mylistings:
    out = line + [None] * (4 - len(line)) # pad the list with None to 4 elements
    cursor.execute("INSERT INTO LoadData VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)", out)