title: sqlite3.OperationalError: near ";": syntax error when Inserting
body: <p>I keep getting a sqlite3.OperationalError: near ";", can't figure out why...</p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong? I am trying to insert records into a database from a list of employee tuples.</p>
  
  <p>Have read other similar errors but not quite the same as this one.</p>
  
  <pre><code>connection = sqlite3.connect("company.db")
  cursor = connection.cursor()
  
  
  
  cursor.execute("""DROP TABLE employee;""")
  
  staff_data = [ ("William", "Shakespeare", "m", "19611025"),
  ("Frank", "Schiller", "m", "19550817"), ("Jane", "Wall", "f", "1989-03-14")]
  
  
  # Define an SQL command
  sql_command = """
  CREATE TABLE employee (
  staff_number INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
  fname VARCHAR(20),
  lname VARCHAR(30),
  gender CHAR(1),
  joining DATE,
  birth_date DATE);
  """
  
  # Execute command
  cursor.execute(sql_command)
  
  # Insert commands
  sql_command = """ INSERT INTO employee (staff_number, fname, lname, gender,
  birth_date) VALUES (NULL, "William", "Shakespeare", "m", "1961-10-25");"""
  
  cursor.execute(sql_command)
  print(sql_command)
  
  for p in staff_data:
      format_str = """ INSERT INTO employee (staff_number, fname, lname, gender, birth_date) VALUES (NULL, "{first}", "{last}", "{gendera}", "{birthdate}"); """
      sql_command = format_str.format(first=p[0], last=p[1], gendera=p[2], birthdate=p[3])
  
  
  print(sql_command)
  cursor.execute(sql_command)
  
  
  
  # DONT FORGET THIS TO SAVE CHANGES
  connection.commit()
  
  connection.close()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is the error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code> INSERT INTO employee (staff_number, fname, lname, gender,
  birth_date) VALUES (NULL, "William", "Shakespeare", "m", "1961-10-25");
   INSERT INTO employee (staff_number, fname, lname, gender, birth_date) VALUES (NULL, "Jane", "Wall", "f", "1989-03-14"); 
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "sqliteuse0.py", line 53, in &lt;module&gt;
      cursor.execute(sql_command)
  sqlite3.OperationalError: near ";": syntax error
  </code></pre>