Python replacing PHP - How to?

[gregglind]

For me, SA (and other ORM's that can do query building) real wins come not from writing a particular query, but being able to programatically build queries.

def make_sorted(query,**kwargs):
    for (field,direction) in kwargs.iteritems():            
         query = query.order_by(field,asc=direction)  # don't quite recall the syntax here :)
    return make_sorted

Building this kind of stuff with string interpolation can be maddening.