How to get Field names from a SQL database into a list in python
Question: Here is a the code I have so far:

    
    
    from ConfigParser import *
    import MySQLdb
    
    configuration = ConfigParser()
    configuration.read('someconfigfile.conf')
        db = MySQLdb.connect(
        host = configuration.get('DATABASE', 'MYSQL_HOST'),
        user = configuration.get('DATABASE', 'MYSQL_USER'),
        passwd = configuration.get('DATABASE', 'MYSQL_PASS'),
        db = configuration.get('DATABASE', 'MYSQL_DB'),
        port = configuration.getint('DATABASE', 'MYSQL_PORT'),
        ssl = {
            'ca':   configuration.get('SSL_SETTINGS', 'SSL_CA'),
            'cert': configuration.get('SSL_SETTINGS', 'SSL_CERT'),
            'key':  configuration.get('SSL_SETTINGS', 'SSL_KEY')
                },
        )
    cursor = db.cursor()
    sql = "SELECT column_name FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='met';"
    cursor.execute(sql)
    list = cursor.fetchall()
    
    print list
    

this is what prints:

    
    
    (('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('field',), ('pk_wind_spd2',), ('field',))
    

And I am getting a tuple instead of a list. I would prefer to have a list of
strings


Answer: Don't shadow built-ins (list), change to

`alist = cursor.fetchall()`

This generator expression will get you the column names in a tuple:

`tuple(i[0] for i in alist)`

