Core Python Programming (2nd Edition)

Database API. What is the Python DB-API? Is it a good thing? Why (or why not)?

Database API. Describe the differences between the database module parameter styles (see the paramstyle module attribute).

Cursor Objects. What are the differences between the cursor execute*() methods?

Cursor Objects. What are the differences between the cursor fetch*() methods?

Database Adapters. Research your RDBMS and its Python module. Is it DB-API compliant? What additional features are available for that module that are extras not required by the API?

Type Objects. Study using Type objects for your database and DB-API adapter and write a small script that uses at least one of those objects.

Refactoring. In the create() function of Example 21.1 (ushuffle_db.py), a table that already exists is dropped and re-created by recursively calling create() again. This is dangerous in case the re-creation of the table fails (again) because you will then have infinite recursion. Fix this problem by creating a more practical solution that does not involve copying the create query (cur.execute()) again in the exception handler. Extra Credit: Try to recreate the table a maximum of three times before returning failure back to the caller.

Database and HTML. Take any existing database table, and use the knowledge you developed from Chapter 20 and output the contents of a database table into an HTML table.

Web Programming and Databases. Take our "user shuffle" example (ushuffle_db.py), and create a Web interface for it.

GUI Programming and Databases. Take our "user shuffle" example (ushuffle_db.py), and throw a GUI for it.

Stock Portfolio Class. Update the stock database example from Chapter 13 to use a relational database.

Switching ORMs to a Different RDBMS. Take either the SQLAlchemy (ushuffle_sa.py) or SQLObject (ushuffle_so.py) application and swap out MySQL as the back-end RDBMS for another one of your choice.