Escaping Strings for MySQL Using Python

When working with web pages and MySQL databases in Python, it's essential to properly escape strings to avoid data corruption. Complex strings that contain special characters, such as apostrophes or quotation marks, can cause errors when stored in the database without proper escaping.

To escape strings for MySQL using Python, you can utilize the escape_string() method provided by the MySQLdb library. This method takes a string as its argument and returns an escaped string that is safe to insert into a MySQL database.

import MySQLdb

conn = MySQLdb.connect(host="localhost", user="username", passwd="password", db="database_name")

Now, to escape a string, simply use the escape_string() method on the connection object:

escaped_string = conn.escape_string(raw_string)

The escaped string can then be safely inserted into the database using SQL commands. For example:

insert_query = "INSERT INTO table_name (column_name) VALUES (%s)"
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute(insert_query, (escaped_string,))
conn.commit()

This method provides a reliable way to escape strings for MySQL databases, ensuring that data is stored safely and accurately.