Python: get escaped SQL string

When I have a cursor, I know I can safely execute a query as follows:

cur.execute("SELECT * FROM foo WHERE foo.bar = %s", (important_variable,))

Is there any way to just get the string safely without executing the query? For example, if important_variable is a string, like "foo 'bar' \"baz", I'd want the appropriately escaped one:

"SELECT * FROM foo WHERE foo.bar = "foo \'bar\' \"baz"

(or whatever the appropriate escaping is, I'm not even sure).

I'm using psycopg, and sqlobject.

Look at the mogrify method for cursors -- it will return the string after variable binding and show any quoting it does

cur.mogrify("SELECT * FROM foo WHERE foo.bar = %s", ("foo 'bar' \"baz",))

You haven't told us what library or DB you are using, but I think your question is answered here: How to quote a string value explicitly (Python DB API/Psycopg2)

SQLObject handles escaping/quoting itself, but if you want to use that functionality:

from sqlobject.converters import sqlrepr
print(sqlrepr('SELECT * FROM foo WHERE foo.bar = "foo \'bar\' \"baz', 'postgres'))

Result:

'SELECT * FROM foo WHERE foo.bar = "foo ''bar'' "baz'