> > I think I am trying to do something very simple, but I don't understand > row objects (why can't they be a normal Python type instead of a web2py > class?).
It acts like a dictionary, but you can do row.field instead of having to do row['field']. It also has a way of storing and returning the value of expressions requested in the query, and it includes special lambda functions to update and delete the record. You can't do any of that with a normal Python type. If you want a plain dict, just do row.as_dict(). Regarding your code, the problem is that you are working with a Rows object, not a Row object. The select() method returns a Rows object, which acts like a list of Row objects (even if it only returns one row). From the book (with regard to the select method): It returns an iterable object of class gluon.sql.Rows whose elements are > Row objects. gluon.sql.Row objects act like dictionaries, but their > elements can also be accessed as attributes, like gluon.storage.Storage. > The former differ from the latter because its values are readonly. If you want to extract the first row from a Rows object, do: row = db(query).select().first() To insert into another table: db.other_table.insert(**row.as_dict()) > The row object and its strangeness is not described very well in the DAL > section of the book. It's too magical. It's need to be more transparent. > Are you saying we need better documentation (agreed), or that the behavior or Rows and Row objects should change? If the latter, what would you suggest? Anthony
