Connecting to SQL server from SQLAlchemy using odbc_connect

Question

I am new to Python and SQL server. I have been trying to insert a pandas df into our database for the past 2 days without any luck. Can anyone please help me debugging the errors.

I have tried the following

import pyodbc
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

engine = create_engine('mssql+pyodbc:///?odbc_connect=DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=bidept;DATABASE=BIDB;UID=sdcc\neils;PWD=neil!pass')
engine.connect()
df.to_sql(name='[BIDB].[dbo].[Test]',con=engine, if_exists='append')

However at the engine.connect() line I am getting the following error

sqlalchemy.exc.DBAPIError: (pyodbc.Error) ('08001', '[08001] [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Neither DSN nor SERVER keyword supplied (0) (SQLDriverConnect)')

Can anyone tell me what I am missing. I am using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio - 14.0.17177.0

I connect to the SQL server through the following

Server type: Database Engine
Server name: bidept
Authentication: Windows Authentication

for which I log into my windows using username : sdcc\neils
and password : neil!pass

I have also tried this

import pyodbc

conn_str = (
    r'Driver={SQL Server Native Client 11.0};'
    r'Server=bidept;'
    r'Database=BIDB;'
    r'Trusted_Connection=yes;'
    )

cnxn = pyodbc.connect(conn_str)

df.to_sql(name='Test',con=cnxn, if_exists='append')

for which I got this error

pandas.io.sql.DatabaseError: Execution failed on sql 'SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name=?;': ('42S02', "[42S02] [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]Invalid object name 'sqlite_master'. (208) (SQLExecDirectW); [42000] [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]Statement(s) could not be prepared. (8180)")

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am clueless as what to do.

Answer 1

As stated in the SQLAlchemy documentation, "The delimeters must be URL escaped" when using a pass-through exact pyodbc string.

So, this will fail ...

import pyodbc
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

params = r'DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=.\SQLEXPRESS;DATABASE=myDb;Trusted_Connection=yes'
conn_str = 'mssql+pyodbc:///?odbc_connect={}'.format(params)
engine = create_engine(conn_str)

... but this will work:

import pyodbc
from sqlalchemy import create_engine
import urllib

params = urllib.parse.quote_plus(r'DRIVER={SQL Server};SERVER=.\SQLEXPRESS;DATABASE=myDb;Trusted_Connection=yes')
conn_str = 'mssql+pyodbc:///?odbc_connect={}'.format(params)
engine = create_engine(conn_str)