Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to update data in a PostgreSQL table from a Python program.

This tutorial picks up from where the Inserting Data Into Table Tutorial left off.

To update data from a table in Python, you follow these steps:

• First, connect to the PostgreSQL server.
• Next, create a cursor object from the connection object.
• Then, execute an UPDATE statement by calling the execute() method of the cursor object.
• After that, commit the changes by calling the commit() method of the connection object.
• Finally, optionally obtain the number of updated rows from the rowcount property of the cursor object.

We will use the vendors table in the suppliers database for the demonstration:

Suppose a vendor changed its name, you need to reflect these changes in the vendors table.

To achieve this, you can define a function update_vendor(), which updates the vendor name based on the vendor id.

First, create a new module called update.py in the project directory.

Second, define update_vendor() function in the update.py module:

import psycopg2
from config import load_config


def update_vendor(vendor_id, vendor_name):
    """ Update vendor name based on the vendor id """

    updated_row_count = 0

    sql = """ UPDATE vendors
                SET vendor_name = %s
                WHERE vendor_id = %s"""

    config = load_config()

    try:
        with  psycopg2.connect(**config) as conn:
            with  conn.cursor() as cur:

                # execute the UPDATE statement
                cur.execute(sql, (vendor_name, vendor_id))
                updated_row_count = cur.rowcount

            # commit the changes to the database
            conn.commit()
    except (Exception, psycopg2.DatabaseError) as error:
        print(error)
    finally:
        return updated_row_count

if __name__ == '__main__':
    update_vendor(1, "3M Corp")

First, open the Command Prompt on Windows or Terminal on Unix-like systems.

Second, execute the update.py module:

python update.py

First, connect to the PostgreSQL server using the psql client tool:

psql -U postgres

Second, change the current database to suppliers:

\c suppliers

Third, retrieve data from the vendors table with the vendor id 1:

SELECT
  *
FROM
  vendors
WHERE
  vendor_id = 1;

Output:

 vendor_id | vendor_name
-----------+-------------
         1 | 3M Corp
(1 row)

The name of the vendor id 1 has been changed as expected.

Download the project source code

• Use the execute() method of a cursor object to execute an UPDATE statement that updates data in a table