Mysqldb Error Local Variable Referenced Before Assignment (different Than Usual)

I am attempting to add some data to MySQL database via a loop that iterates through the API that returns a JSON file. I am using Python and MySQLdb module. For some reason I am ge

Solution 1:

The issue is that item is only assigned when you enter the for loop

for item in data['items']:
    ...

If data['items'] is empty, you never do so, and item remains unassigned.

Solution 2:

Since this script iterates through the loop and some of the returned variables are NULL python then (rightfully so) throws the UnboundLocalError as the variable isn't there/hasn't been declared.

I attempted to handle this problem by using:

except KeyError:

However, the errors we are dealing with here aren't only KeyErrors but also UnboundLocalErrors, so handling only one of the errors wasn't effective.

I modified the script in the following way (mind you this works in Python 2.7 I am not sure if the same syntax is possible in Python 3):

try:
    description = item['particulars']['description']
except (UnboundLocalError, KeyError):
    #declaring the description as None if not there so MySQL/Python don't throw an error
    description = None

and then when adding data to MySQL database I am also using the error handler and passing if there is one:

try:
    cursor.execute("""INSERT INTO companies_and_charges_tmp (etags, company_id, created, delivered, satisfied, status, description, persons_entitled) VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s)""", (item.get('etag'), ch_no, item.get('created_on'), item.get('delivered_on'), item.get('satisfied_on'), item.get('status'), description, persons_entitled))
    db.commit()
except UnboundLocalError:
     pass