psycopg2: insert multiple rows with one query

Question

I need to insert multiple rows with one query (number of rows is not constant), so I need to execute query like this one:

INSERT INTO t (a, b) VALUES (1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6);

The only way I know is

args = [(1,2), (3,4), (5,6)]
args_str = ','.join(cursor.mogrify("%s", (x, )) for x in args)
cursor.execute("INSERT INTO t (a, b) VALUES "+args_str)

but I want some simpler way.

Answer 1

Another nice and efficient approach - is to pass rows for insertion as 1 argument, which is array of json objects.

E.g. you passing argument:

[ {id: 18, score: 1}, { id: 19, score: 5} ]

It is array, which may contain any amount of objects inside. Then your SQL looks like:

INSERT INTO links (parent_id, child_id, score) 
SELECT 123, (r->>'id')::int, (r->>'score')::int 
FROM unnest($1::json[]) as r 

Notice: Your postgress must be new enough, to support json