ENH: ValueError when to_sql() receives empty name param

doc/source/whatsnew/v2.1.0.rst

@@ -334,6 +334,7 @@ MultiIndex
 I/O
 ^^^
 - :meth:`DataFrame.to_orc` now raising ``ValueError`` when non-default :class:`Index` is given (:issue:`51828`)
+- :meth:`DataFrame.to_sql` now raising ``ValueError`` when the name param is left empty while using SQLAlchemy to connect (:issue:`52675`)
 - Bug in :func:`read_html`, style elements were read into DataFrames (:issue:`52197`)
 - Bug in :func:`read_html`, tail texts were removed together with elements containing ``display:none`` style (:issue:`51629`)
 -

pandas/io/sql.py

@@ -886,6 +886,9 @@ def __init__(
         if self.table is None:
             raise ValueError(f"Could not init table '{name}'")
 
+        if not len(self.name):
+            raise ValueError("Empty table name specified")
+
     def exists(self):
         return self.pd_sql.has_table(self.name, self.schema)
 

pandas/tests/io/test_sql.py

@@ -2676,6 +2676,11 @@ def test_bigint_warning(self):
         with tm.assert_produces_warning(None):
             sql.read_sql_table("test_bigintwarning", self.conn)
 
+    def test_valueerror_exception(self):
+        df = DataFrame({"col1": [1, 2], "col2": [3, 4]})
+        with pytest.raises(ValueError, match="Empty table name specified"):
+            df.to_sql(name="", con=self.conn, if_exists="replace", index=False)
+
     def test_row_object_is_named_tuple(self):
         # GH 40682
         # Test for the is_named_tuple() function