python - Get data from pandas into a SQL server with PYODBC

Question

I am trying to understand how python could pull data from an FTP server into pandas then move this into SQL server. My code here is very rudimentary to say the least and I am looking for any advice or help at all. I have tried to load the data from the FTP server first which works fine.... If I then remove this code and change it to a select from ms sql server it is fine so the connection string works, but the insertion into the SQL server seems to be causing problems.

import pyodbc
import pandas
from ftplib import FTP
from StringIO import StringIO
import csv

ftp = FTP ('ftp.xyz.com','user','pass' )
ftp.set_pasv(True)
r = StringIO()
ftp.retrbinary('filname.csv', r.write)

pandas.read_table (r.getvalue(), delimiter=',')


connStr = ('DRIVER={SQL Server Native Client 10.0};SERVER=localhost;DATABASE=TESTFEED;UID=sa;PWD=pass')
conn = pyodbc.connect(connStr)

cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute("INSERT INTO dbo.tblImport(Startdt, Enddt, x,y,z,)" "VALUES                  (x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x.x,x)")
cursor.close()
conn.commit()
conn.close()
print"Script has successfully run!"

When I remove the ftp code this runs perfectly, but I do not understand how to make the next jump to get this into Microsoft SQL server, or even if it is possible without saving into a file first.

Answer 1

For the 'write to sql server' part, you can use the convenient to_sql method of pandas (so no need to iterate over the rows and do the insert manually). See the docs on interacting with SQL databases with pandas: http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/io.html#io-sql

You will need at least pandas 0.14 to have this working, and you also need sqlalchemy installed. An example, assuming df is the DataFrame you got from read_table:

import sqlalchemy
import pyodbc
engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("mssql+pyodbc://<username>:<password>@<dsnname>")

# write the DataFrame to a table in the sql database
df.to_sql("table_name", engine)

See also the documentation page of to_sql.
More info on how to create the connection engine with sqlalchemy for sql server with pyobdc, you can find here:http://docs.sqlalchemy.org/en/rel_1_1/dialects/mssql.html#dialect-mssql-pyodbc-connect

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But if your goal is to just get the csv data into the SQL database, you could also consider doing this directly from SQL. See eg Import CSV file into SQL Server