SQLAlchemy insert - AttributeError: Object has no attribute 'items'

Start with documentationInsert.values()

To pass a value to a INSERTstatement, you can use the keyword args:

users.insert().values(name="some name")

Alternatively, you can pass a positional arg:

A dictionary, tuple or list of dictionaries or tuples can be passed as a single positional argument

users.insert().values({"name": "some name"})  # passing a single dict
users.insert().values((5, "some name"))  # passing a tuple (could be list too).

For a tuple/list of values, SQLAlchemy will convert it to a dictionary by iterating over the collection of table columns and values. Here 's a function that processes a single positional arg as .values()( permalink ) :

def process_single(p):
    if isinstance(p, (list, tuple)):
        return dict(
            (c.key, pval)
            for c, pval in zip(self.table.c, p)
        )
    else:
        return p  # this is where it is assumed that your datetime object is a dict

So, for the record, your single positional args .values()can be either or dict, and in the above function, you can see that if you pass the value of or , they are converted to . If your single positional arg is not a or , simply return it assuming it is a (in the example above I have commented where this assumption is made).listtuplelisttupledictlisttupledict

This is what is causing your error. You're passing a positional arg instead .values()of an listor tuple, so SQLAlchemy assumes it's one dict. However, this is not dictan datetime.datetimeinstance , but an instance. mistake...

AttributeError: 'datetime.datetime' object has no attribute 'items'

...just the first time SQLAlchemy performs a specific action on the parameter object , dictafter assuming that SQLAlchemy is a parameter dict.

To solve your problem, just pass the value in an acceptable format, any of them will work:

ins = insert(datetime_test_table).values((datetime.datetime.now(),))
ins = insert(datetime_test_table).values([datetime.datetime.now()])
ins = insert(datetime_test_table).values({'dt_col_name': datetime.datetime.now()})
ins = insert(datetime_test_table).values(dt_col_name=datetime.datetime.now())