You can modify the contents of existing records of a table in PostgreSQL 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 PostgreSQL −

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

Example

Assume we have created a table with name CRICKETERS using the following query −

postgres=# CREATE TABLE CRICKETERS ( 
   First_Name VARCHAR(255), Last_Name VARCHAR(255), 
   Age int, Place_Of_Birth VARCHAR(255), Country VARCHAR(255)
);
CREATE TABLE
postgres=#

And if we have inserted 5 records in to it using INSERT statements as −

postgres=# insert into CRICKETERS values(''Shikhar'', ''Dhawan'', 33, ''Delhi'', ''India'');
INSERT 0 1
postgres=# insert into CRICKETERS values(''Jonathan'', ''Trott'', 38, ''CapeTown'', ''SouthAfrica'');
INSERT 0 1
postgres=# insert into CRICKETERS values(''Kumara'', ''Sangakkara'', 41, ''Matale'', ''Srilanka'');
INSERT 0 1
postgres=# insert into CRICKETERS values(''Virat'', ''Kohli'', 30, ''Delhi'', ''India'');
INSERT 0 1
postgres=# insert into CRICKETERS values(''Rohit'', ''Sharma'', 32, ''Nagpur'', ''India'');
INSERT 0 1

Following statement modifies the age of the cricketer, whose first name is Shikhar −

postgres=# UPDATE CRICKETERS SET AGE = 45 WHERE FIRST_NAME = ''Shikhar'' ;
UPDATE 1
postgres=#

If you retrieve the record whose FIRST_NAME is Shikhar you observe that the age value has been changed to 45 −

postgres=# SELECT * FROM CRICKETERS WHERE FIRST_NAME = ''Shikhar'';
first_name  | last_name | age | place_of_birth | country
------------+-----------+-----+----------------+---------
Shikhar     | Dhawan    | 45  | Delhi          | India
(1 row)
postgres=#

If you haven’t used the WHERE clause, values of all the records will be updated. Following UPDATE statement increases the age of all the records in the CRICKETERS table by 1 −

postgres=# UPDATE CRICKETERS SET AGE = AGE+1;
UPDATE 5

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

postgres=# SELECT * FROM CRICKETERS;
first_name  | last_name  | age | place_of_birth | country
------------+------------+-----+----------------+-------------
Jonathan    | Trott      | 39  | CapeTown       | SouthAfrica
Kumara      | Sangakkara | 42  | Matale         | Srilanka
Virat       | Kohli      | 31  | Delhi          | India
Rohit       | Sharma     | 33  | Nagpur         | India
Shikhar     | Dhawan     | 46  | Delhi          | India
(5 rows)

Updating records using python

The cursor class of psycopg2 provides a method with name execute() method. This method accepts the query as a parameter and executes it.

Therefore, to insert data into a table in PostgreSQL using python −

• Import psycopg2 package.

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

• Turn off the auto-commit mode by setting false as value to the attribute autocommit.

• The cursor() method of the Connection class of the psycopg2 library returns a cursor object. Create a cursor object using this method.

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

Example

Following Python code updates the contents of the Employee table and retrieves the results −

import psycopg2

#establishing the connection
conn = psycopg2.connect(
   database="mydb", user=''postgres'', password=''password'', host=''127.0.0.1'', port= ''5432''
)

#Setting auto commit false
conn.autocommit = True

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

#Fetching all the rows before the update
print("Contents of the Employee table: ")
sql = ''''''SELECT * from EMPLOYEE''''''
cursor.execute(sql)
print(cursor.fetchall())

#Updating the records
sql = "UPDATE EMPLOYEE SET AGE = AGE + 1 WHERE SEX = ''M''"
cursor.execute(sql)
print("Table updated...... ")

#Fetching all the rows after the update
print("Contents of the Employee table after the update operation: ")
sql = ''''''SELECT * from EMPLOYEE''''''
cursor.execute(sql)
print(cursor.fetchall())

#Commit your changes in the database
conn.commit()

#Closing the connection
conn.close()

Output

Contents of the Employee table:
[(''Ramya'', ''Rama priya'', 27, ''F'', 9000.0), 
   (''Vinay'', ''Battacharya'', 20, ''M'', 6000.0), 
   (''Sharukh'', ''Sheik'', 25, ''M'', 8300.0), 
   (''Sarmista'', ''Sharma'', 26, ''F'', 10000.0), 
   (''Tripthi'', ''Mishra'', 24, ''F'', 6000.0)]
Table updated......
Contents of the Employee table after the update operation:
[(''Ramya'', ''Rama priya'', 27, ''F'', 9000.0), 
   (''Sarmista'', ''Sharma'', 26, ''F'', 10000.0), 
   (''Tripthi'', ''Mishra'', 24, ''F'', 6000.0), 
   (''Vinay'', ''Battacharya'', 21, ''M'', 6000.0), 
   (''Sharukh'', ''Sheik'', 26, ''M'', 8300.0)]