SQLAlchemy Core - Using Textual SQL

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SQLAlchemy lets you just use strings, for those cases when the SQL is already known and there isn’t a strong need for the statement to support dynamic features. The text() construct is used to compose a textual statement that is passed to the database mostly unchanged.

It constructs a new TextClause, representing a textual SQL string directly as shown in the below code −

from sqlalchemy import text
t = text("SELECT * FROM students")
result = connection.execute(t)

The advantages text() provides over a plain string are −

  • backend-neutral support for bind parameters
  • per-statement execution options
  • result-column typing behaviour

The text()function requires Bound parameters in the named colon format. They are consistent regardless of database backend. To send values in for the parameters, we pass them into the execute() method as additional arguments.

The following example uses bound parameters in textual SQL −

from sqlalchemy.sql import text
s = text("select students.name, students.lastname from students where students.name between :x and :y")
conn.execute(s, x = 'A', y = 'L').fetchall()

The text() function constructs SQL expression as follows −

select students.name, students.lastname from students where students.name between ? and ?

The values of x = ’A’ and y = ’L’ are passed as parameters. Result is a list of rows with names between ‘A’ and ‘L’ −

[('Komal', 'Bhandari'), ('Abdul', 'Sattar')]

The text() construct supports pre-established bound values using the TextClause.bindparams() method. The parameters can also be explicitly typed as follows −

stmt = text("SELECT * FROM students WHERE students.name BETWEEN :x AND :y")

stmt = stmt.bindparams(
   bindparam("x", type_= String), 
   bindparam("y", type_= String)
)

result = conn.execute(stmt, {"x": "A", "y": "L"})

The text() function also be produces fragments of SQL within a select() object that 
accepts text() objects as an arguments. The “geometry” of the statement is provided by 
select() construct , and the textual content by text() construct. We can build a statement 
without the need to refer to any pre-established Table metadata. 

from sqlalchemy.sql import select
s = select([text("students.name, students.lastname from students")]).where(text("students.name between :x and :y"))
conn.execute(s, x = 'A', y = 'L').fetchall()

You can also use and_() function to combine multiple conditions in WHERE clause created with the help of text() function.

from sqlalchemy import and_
from sqlalchemy.sql import select
s = select([text("* from students")]) \
.where(
   and_(
      text("students.name between :x and :y"),
      text("students.id>2")
   )
)
conn.execute(s, x = 'A', y = 'L').fetchall()

Above code fetches rows with names between “A” and “L” with id greater than 2. The output of the code is given below −

[(3, 'Komal', 'Bhandari'), (4, 'Abdul', 'Sattar')]
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