Python Sqlite - Where Clause

If you want to fetch, delete or, update particular rows of a table in SQLite, you need to use the where clause to specify condition to filter the rows of the table for the operation.

For example, if you have a SELECT statement with where clause, only the rows which satisfies the specified condition will be retrieved.

Syntax

Following is the syntax of the WHERE clause in SQLite −

SELECT column1, column2, columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE [search_condition]

You can specify a search_condition using comparison or logical operators. like >, <, =, LIKE, NOT, etc. The following examples would make this concept clear.

Example

Assume we have created a table with name CRICKETERS using the following query −

sqlite> CREATE TABLE CRICKETERS (
   First_Name VARCHAR(255),
   Last_Name VARCHAR(255),
   Age int,
   Place_Of_Birth VARCHAR(255),
   Country VARCHAR(255)
);
sqlite>

And if we have inserted 5 records in to it using INSERT statements as −

sqlite> insert into CRICKETERS values('Shikhar', 'Dhawan', 33, 'Delhi', 'India');
sqlite> insert into CRICKETERS values('Jonathan', 'Trott', 38, 'CapeTown', 'SouthAfrica');
sqlite> insert into CRICKETERS values('Kumara', 'Sangakkara', 41, 'Matale', 'Srilanka');
sqlite> insert into CRICKETERS values('Virat', 'Kohli', 30, 'Delhi', 'India');
sqlite> insert into CRICKETERS values('Rohit', 'Sharma', 32, 'Nagpur', 'India');
sqlite>

Following SELECT statement retrieves the records whose age is greater than 35 −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM CRICKETERS WHERE AGE > 35;
First_Name Last_Name  Age  Place_Of_B Country
---------- ---------- ---- ---------- -------------
Jonathan   Trott      38   CapeTown   SouthAfrica
Kumara     Sangakkara 41   Matale     Srilanka
sqlite>

Example - Where clause using python

The Cursor object/class contains all the methods to execute queries and fetch data, etc. The cursor method of the connection class returns a cursor object.

Therefore, to create a table in SQLite database using python −

• Establish connection with a database using the connect() method.

• Create a cursor object by invoking the cursor() method on the above created connection object.

• Now execute the CREATE TABLE statement using the execute() method of the Cursor class.

Following example creates a table named Employee and populates it. Then using the where clause it retrieves the records with age value less than 23.

main.py

import sqlite3

#Connecting to sqlite
conn = sqlite3.connect('example.db')

#Creating a cursor object using the cursor() method
cursor = conn.cursor()

#Dropping EMPLOYEE table if already exists.
cursor.execute("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS EMPLOYEE")
sql = '''CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME CHAR(20) NOT NULL,
   LAST_NAME CHAR(20),
   AGE INT,
   SEX CHAR(1),
   INCOME FLOAT
)'''
cursor.execute(sql)

#Populating the table
cursor.execute('''INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, AGE, SEX, INCOME) VALUES 
   ('Ramya', 'Rama priya', 27, 'F', 9000)''')

cursor.execute('''INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE
   (FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, AGE, SEX, INCOME) VALUES 
   ('Vinay', 'Battacharya', 20, 'M', 6000)''')

cursor.execute('''INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, AGE, SEX, INCOME) VALUES 
   ('Sharukh', 'Sheik', 25, 'M', 8300)''')

cursor.execute('''INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, AGE, SEX, INCOME) VALUES 
   ('Sarmista', 'Sharma', 26, 'F', 10000)''')

cursor.execute('''INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, AGE, SEX, INCOME) VALUES 
   ('Tripthi', 'Mishra', 24, 'F', 6000)''')

#Retrieving specific records using the where clause
cursor.execute("SELECT * from EMPLOYEE WHERE AGE <23")
print(cursor.fetchall())

#Commit your changes in the database
conn.commit()

#Closing the connection
conn.close()

Output

[('Vinay', 'Battacharya', 20, 'M', 6000.0)]