This Python script uses the pymysql library to connect to a MySQL database and performs the following actions:

Connection Setup: The script initializes variables for database connection (host, user, password, db).

Function update_duplicates_status: This function takes a database cursor, a list of duplicate article IDs, and a batch size for updates. It updates the status of articles to 'off' using batch processing. Batch processing reduces the number of database queries by updating the status for a large number of records at once.

Database Connection: The script establishes a connection to the database and creates a cursor for executing queries.

Data Extraction: The script performs an SQL query to extract the ID and the first 150 characters of the description (snippet) of each article.

Identification of Duplicates: It stores the first 150 characters of descriptions in a dictionary to determine uniqueness. If a snippet already exists in the dictionary, the article's ID is added to the list of duplicates.

Updating the Status of Duplicates: Using the update_duplicates_status function, the script updates the status of all articles whose IDs are in the duplicates list.

Transaction Completion: The transaction is committed, which means saving all changes in the database.

Exception Handling and Closing Connection: The script handles potential errors during connection and ends the connection to the database after execution or in case of an error.

This script can be useful for addressing content duplication issues in the database, allowing for easy identification and deactivation of duplicated records.