How to make a python search with user entry case insensitive

Question

Hi I have a python search which works well and then I have a tkinter GUI which accepts a user input. The user input is then used to query the database using python. It matches records together depending on the input for example it would match blue to blue when I need it to be able to match blue to Blue etc. Does anybody know how to do this, here is an example of what I have already(N.B it is a made up scenario);

def Search():
global E1, E2, E3, E4, file


    #Open the file in read mode
    file = sqlite3.connect('H:\\matching.db')

    #Welcome message
    print ("Please type in the information required")


    window = Tk()
    window.title ("Search for matches")

    def QuitSearch():
       window.destroy()


   #Create text that will be shown to the user
   window.configure(bg="red")
   Label(window, text="Please enter the colour of your hair").grid(row=0)
   Label(window, text="Please enter the colour of your eyes").grid(row=1)
   Label(window, text="Please enter your gender").grid(row=2)
   Label(window, text="Please enter your shoe size").grid(row=3)


   #Create where the user will input
   E1= Entry(window)
   E2= Entry(window)
   E3= Entry(window)
   E4= Entry(window)

   #Assigning the input boxes to area on the screen
   E1.grid(row=0, column=1)
   E2.grid(row=1, column=1)
   E3.grid(row=2, column=1)
   E4.grid(row=3, column=1)

   button = Button(window, text = "Submit information", command=Submit, fg="yellow", bg="black")
   button.grid(row=3, column=2, padx = 5)


   quitbutton = Button (window, text ="QUIT", command=QuitSearch, fg ="red")
   quitbutton.grid(row=3, column=3, padx=5)







#The submit function allows the data inserted by the user in Search to be submitted and to search the database    
def Submit():
    global E1, E2, E3, E4, file

    #Retaining user input
    eyecolour = E1.get()
    haircolour = E2.get()
    gender = E3.get()
    shoesize = E4.get()



    #The search
    cursor = file.execute ('''SELECT ID, forename, surname, FROM people
    WHERE eyecolour =? and haircolour=? and gender=? and shoesize=? ''', (eyecolour, haircolour, gender, shoezize)) 

    window=Tk()
    def QuitOutputScreen():
    window.destroy()

    for row_number, row in enumerate(cursor):
        Label(window, text ="ID = "+ str(row[0])).grid(row=1, column = row_number)
        Label(window, text ="Forename = "+str(row[1])).grid(row=2, column = row_number)
        Label(window, text ="Surname = "+(row[2])).grid(row=3, column = row_number)


    Label(window, text ="Search complete ").grid(column=11)

    quitbutton = Button (window, text ="QUIT", command=QuitOutputScreen, fg ="red")
    quitbutton.grid(row=11, column=11, padx=5)


file.close()

Answer 1

This looks more like a question that concerns the DBMS (sqlite, in this case), rather than Python itself.

You can solve the problem using case-insensitive search query in sqlite. You can find some explanation at How to set Sqlite3 to be case insensitive when string comparing? .

Answer 2

Within you python code you can store and search using all lower or upper case, by using the string lower and upper function or you could use regular expressions and re.IGNORE_CASE to do your searching.

For DB queries you can either store everything in a fixed case or tell the DB engine to ignore case.