How Can I Use A String To To Represent An Sqlalchemy Object Attribute?

I am writing a Flask application with SQLalchemy and WTForms. Trouble with database updates... I have many object table fields I am trying to update. so I started with this... # th

Solution 1:

What if you restructured like this?

event_fields = ('evt_num', 'evt_name', 'evt_location', 'evt_address',
            'evt_city', 'evt_state', 'evt_zip', 'evt_notes')

for aa in event_fields:
    form_data = getattr(form, aa).data
    db_data = getattr(event,aa)
    print "form data", form_data  # prints posted form data
    print "db data", db_data # prints posted data from database

    if form_data != db_data:  # if form data shows a change
        setattr(event, aa, form_data)    # update database now works
        db_change = True
        session.flush()
        ...

This way, you make fewer calls to getattr() and maybe optimize your code slightly.

Solution 2:

Per user:coralv's comment, I resolved the problem by storing the getattr contents into a variable instead of having it as a part of the setattr function. Code ends up like this...

event_fields = ('evt_num', 'evt_name', 'evt_location', 'evt_address',
                'evt_city', 'evt_state', 'evt_zip', 'evt_notes')

for aa in event_fields:
    print "form data", getattr(form, aa).data  # prints posted form data
    print "db data", getattr(event, aa) # prints posted data from database
    if getattr(form, aa).data != getattr(event, aa):  # if form data shows a change
        val = getattr(form, aa).data
        setattr(event, aa, val)    # update database now works
        db_change = True
        session.flush()
        ...