UPDATE Operation on any database updates one or more records, which are already available in the database. You can update the values of existing records in MySQL using the UPDATE statement. To update specific rows, you need to use the WHERE clause along with it.

Syntax

Following is the syntax of the UPDATE statement in MySQL −

UPDATE table_name
SET column1 = value1, column2 = value2...., columnN = valueN
WHERE [condition];

You can combine N number of conditions using the AND or the OR operators.

Example

Assume we have created a table in MySQL with name EMPLOYEES as −

mysql> CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE(
   FIRST_NAME CHAR(20) NOT NULL,
   LAST_NAME CHAR(20),
   AGE INT,
   SEX CHAR(1),
   INCOME FLOAT
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.36 sec)

And if we have inserted 4 records in to it using INSERT statements as −

mysql> INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE VALUES
   (''Krishna'', ''Sharma'', 19, ''M'', 2000),
   (''Raj'', ''Kandukuri'', 20, ''M'', 7000),
   (''Ramya'', ''Ramapriya'', 25, ''F'', 5000),
   (''Mac'', ''Mohan'', 26, ''M'', 2000);

Following MySQL statement increases the age of all male employees by one year −

mysql> UPDATE EMPLOYEE SET AGE = AGE + 1 WHERE SEX = ''M'';
Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.06 sec)
Rows matched: 3 Changed: 3 Warnings: 0

If you retrieve the contents of the table, you can see the updated values as −

mysql> select * from EMPLOYEE;
+------------+-----------+------+------+--------+
| FIRST_NAME | LAST_NAME | AGE  | SEX  | INCOME |
+------------+-----------+------+------+--------+
| Krishna    | Sharma    | 20   | M    | 2000   |
| Raj        | Kandukuri | 21   | M    | 7000   |
| Ramya      | Ramapriya | 25   | F    | 5000   |
| Mac        | Mohan     | 27   | M    | 2000   |
+------------+-----------+------+------+--------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Updating the contents of a table using Python

To update the records in a table in MySQL using python −

• import mysql.connector package.

• Create a connection object using the mysql.connector.connect() method, by passing the user name, password, host (optional default: localhost) and, database (optional) as parameters to it.

• Create a cursor object by invoking the cursor() method on the connection object created above.

• Then, execute the UPDATE statement by passing it as a parameter to the execute() method.

Example

The following example increases age of all the males by one year.

import mysql.connector

#establishing the connection
conn = mysql.connector.connect(
   user=''root'', password=''password'', host=''127.0.0.1'', database=''mydb'')

#Creating a cursor object using the cursor() method
cursor = conn.cursor()

#Preparing the query to update the records
sql = ''''''UPDATE EMPLOYEE SET AGE = AGE + 1 WHERE SEX = ''M'' ''''''
try:
   # Execute the SQL command
   cursor.execute(sql)
   
   # Commit your changes in the database
   conn.commit()
except:
   # Rollback in case there is any error
   conn.rollback()
   
#Retrieving data
sql = ''''''SELECT * from EMPLOYEE''''''

#Executing the query
cursor.execute(sql)

#Displaying the result
print(cursor.fetchall())

#Closing the connection
conn.close()

Output

[(''Krishna'', ''Sharma'', 22, ''M'', 2000.0), 
   (''Raj'', ''Kandukuri'', 23, ''M'', 7000.0), 
   (''Ramya'', ''Ramapriya'', 26, ''F'', 5000.0)
]