<p>Does anyone know if there's a way to automatically expand a list in Python, separated by commas?  I'm writing some Python code that uses the MySQLdb library, and I'm trying to dynamically update a list of rows in a MySQL database with certain key values.</p>

<p>For instance, in the code below, I'd like to have the numeric values in the record_ids list expand into a SQL "<code>IN</code>" clause.</p>

<pre><code>import MySQLdb
record_ids = [ 23, 43, 71, 102, 121, 241 ]

mysql = MySQLdb.connect(user="username", passwd="secret", db="apps")
mysql_cursor = mysql.cursor()

sqlStmt="UPDATE apps.sometable SET lastmod=SYSDATE() where rec_id in ( %s )"

mysql_cursor.execute( sqlStmt, record_ids )
mysql.commit()
</code></pre>

<p>Any help would be appreciated!</p>

try:
```
```
",".join( map(str, record_ids) )
```
```
```
",".join( list_of_strings )
```
joins a list of string by separating them with commas
if you have a list of numbers,
```
map( str, list )
```
will convert it to a list of strings