dtype definition for pandas dataframe with columns of VARCHAR or String - pandas

Question

I want to get some data in a dictionary that need to go into a pandas dataframe.
The dataframe is later written in a PostgreSQL table using sqlalchemy, and I would like to get the right column types.
Hence, I specify the dtypes for the dataframe
dtypes = {"forretningshændelse": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=8),
"forretningsområde": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=40),
"forretningsproces": sqlalchemy.types.INTEGER(),
"id_namespace": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=100),
"id_lokalId": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=36),
"kommunekode": sqlalchemy.types.INTEGER(),
"registreringFra": sqlalchemy.types.DateTime()}
Later I use df = pd.DataFrame(item_lst, dtype=dtypes), where item_lst is a list of dictionaries.
Independent from me using either String(8), String(length=8) or VARCHAR(8) in the dtype definition, the result of pd.DataFrame(item_lst, dtype=dtypes) is always object of type '(String or VARCHAR)' has no len().
How do I have to define the dtype to overcome this error?

Answer 1

Instead of forcing data types when the DataFrame is created, let pandas infer the data types (just df = pd.DataFrame(item_lst)) and then use your dtypes dict with to_sql() when you push your DataFrame to the database, like this:
from pprint import pprint
import pandas as pd
import sqlalchemy
engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("sqlite://")
item_lst = [{"forretningshændelse": "foo"}]
df = pd.DataFrame(item_lst)
print(df.info())
"""
<class 'pandas.core.frame.DataFrame'>
RangeIndex: 1 entries, 0 to 0
Data columns (total 1 columns):
# Column Non-Null Count Dtype
--- ------ -------------- -----
0 forretningshændelse 1 non-null object
dtypes: object(1)
memory usage: 136.0+ bytes
None
"""
dtypes = {"forretningshændelse": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=8)}
df.to_sql("tbl", engine, index=False, dtype=dtypes)
insp = sqlalchemy.inspect(engine)
pprint(insp.get_columns("tbl"))
"""
[{'autoincrement': 'auto',
'default': None,
'name': 'forretningshændelse',
'nullable': True,
'primary_key': 0,
'type': VARCHAR(length=8)}]
"""

Answer 2

I believe you are confusing the dtypes within the DataFrame with the dtypes on the SQL table itself.
You probably don't need to manually specify the datatypes in pandas itself but if you do, here's how.
Spoiler alert: it is written in the pandas.Dataframe documentation that only a single dtype must be specified so you will need some loops or manual column work to get different types.
To solve your problem:
import pandas as pd
import sqlalchemy
engine = sqlalchemy.create_engine("connection_string")
df = pd.DataFrame(item_list)
dtypes = {"forretningshændelse": sqlalchemy.types.String(length=8),
"forretningsområde": sqlalchemy.types.String(40),
"forretningsproces": sqlalchemy.types.INTEGER(),
"id_namespace": sqlalchemy.types.String(100),
"id_lokalId": sqlalchemy.types.String(36),
"kommunekode": sqlalchemy.types.INTEGER(),
"registreringFra": sqlalchemy.types.DateTime()}
with engine.connect() as engine:
df.to_sql("table_name",if_exists="replace", con=engine, dtype=dtypes)
Tip: Avoid using special characters while coding in general, it only makes maintaining code harder at some point :). I assumed you're creating a new sql table and not appending, otherwise types for the table would already be defined.
Happy Coding!