It almost goes without saying that querying and data retrieval is the bread and butter of database programming. In this chapter, we have covered the formation of a MySQL query and how to pass it from Python. We also saw how to use user-defined variables to allow dynamic formation of statements rather than pre-configured queries. In order to adjust our program flow, we also saw how to determine the characteristics of a database and its tables from within Python. Finally, we programmed a command-line search utility that returns data of the user's choice in two different formats.

In the next chapter, we will look at the flipside of the SELECT command, INSERT.