# Never do this -- insecure! symbol = 'IBM' c.execute("select * from stocks where symbol = '%s'" % symbol) # Do this instead t = ('IBM',) c.execute('select * from stocks where symbol=?', t) # Larger example for t in [('2006-03-28', 'BUY', 'IBM', 1000, 45.00), ('2006-04-05', 'BUY', 'MSFT', 1000, 72.00), ('2006-04-06', 'SELL', 'IBM', 500, 53.00), ]: c.execute('insert into stocks values (?,?,?,?,?)', t)