Insert Date Object in MySQL Using Python

When working with databases, especially MySQL, handling dates correctly is crucial. Python's datetime module provides powerful tools for managing dates and times. To insert a date into a MySQL database, which has a column of DATE or DATETIME type. Following are several methods to achieve this.

• Using strftime() for Formatting
• Using isoformat() Method
• Passing datetime object directly to the connector

Using 'strftime()' for Formatting

The strftime() method allows you to format a datetime object into a string according to a specific format. The '%Y', '%m', '%d', '%H', '%M', and '%S' directives are placeholders that strftime() replaces with the corresponding year, month, day, hour, minute, and second from your `datetime` object.

Example

The following example, demonstrates the usage of strftime() to format a datetime object into a string. Here, strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') is used where '%Y' is the year with century, `%m` is the month, `%d' is the day, '%H' is the hour, '%M' is the minute, and '%S' is the second.

from datetime import datetime
import mysql.connector

# Database connection details
mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
    host="your_host",
    user="your_user",
    password="your_password",
    database="your_database"
)

mycursor = mydb.cursor()

# Get the current date and time
now = datetime.now()
id_value = 1

# Format the datetime object into a string
formatted_date = now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

# SQL query to insert data
sql = "INSERT INTO your_table (id, date_created) VALUES (%s, %s)"
val = (id_value, formatted_date)
mycursor.execute(sql, val)
mydb.commit()

print(mycursor.rowcount, "record inserted.")

Following is the output of the above code ?

1 record inserted.  

Using 'isoformat()' Method

The isoformat() method offers a more specified way to convert a 'datetime' object into a string. Instead of manually specifying the format with directives like strftime(), isoformat() automatically produces a string that adheres to the ISO 8601 standard. This standard defines an unambiguous way to represent dates and times, making it ideal for data exchange and storage.

The resulting string looks like `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ffffff`, where `T` separates the date and time, and 'ffffff' represents microseconds.

Example

This method is very similar to the first one, but instead of using strftime(), we use isoformat() to format the date. The isoformat() method produces a string in the format 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.ffffff', which is generally compatible with MySQL's 'DATETIME' type.

from datetime import datetime  
import mysql.connector  

# Database connection details (replace with your actual credentials)  
mydb = mysql.connector.connect(  
    host="your_host",  
    user="your_user",  
    password="your_password",  
    database="your_database"  
)  

mycursor = mydb.cursor()  

# Get the current date and time  
now = datetime.now()  
id_value = 2  

# Format the datetime object into an ISO format string  
formatted_date = now.isoformat()  

# SQL query to insert data  
sql = "INSERT INTO your_table (id, date_created) VALUES (%s, %s)"  
val = (id_value, formatted_date)  

# Execute the query  
mycursor.execute(sql, val)  
mydb.commit()  

print(mycursor.rowcount, "record inserted.")  

Following is the output of the above code ?

1 record inserted.  

Passing datetime object directly to the connector

Connectors provides the capability to manage datetime objects. This built-in functionality rectifies the necessity for developers to manually format these objects before inserting them into the database or retrieving them. Instead of requiring explicit formatting steps, these connectors can intelligently interpret and process datetime objects directly.

Example

In this example, we directly pass the 'datetime' object 'now' to the 'execute()' method. The MySQL connector might automatically convert this Python 'datetime' object into a format that MySQL understands.

from datetime import datetime
import mysql.connector

# Database connection details
mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
    host="your_host",
    user="your_user",
    password="your_password",
    database="your_database"
)

mycursor = mydb.cursor()

# Get the current date and time
now = datetime.now()
id_value = 3

# SQL query to insert data
sql = "INSERT INTO your_table (id, date_created) VALUES (%s, %s)"
val = (id_value, now)  # Pass the datetime object directly

# Execute the query
mycursor.execute(sql, val)
mydb.commit()

print(mycursor.rowcount, "record inserted.")

Following is the output of the above code ?

1 record inserted.