[python] Integrating MySQL with Python in Windows

I am finding it difficult to use MySQL with Python in my windows system.

I am currently using Python 2.6. I have tried to compile MySQL-python-1.2.3b1 (which is supposed to work for Python 2.6 ?) source code using the provided setup scripts. The setup script runs and it doesn't report any error but it doesn't generate _mysql module.

I have also tried setting up MySQL for Python 2.5 with out success. The problem with using 2.5 is that Python 2.5 is compiled with visual studio 2003 (I installed it using the provided binaries). I have visual studio 2005 on my windows system. Hence setuptools fails to generate _mysql module.

Any help ?

The precompiled binaries on http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#mysql-python is just worked for me.

1. Open MySQL_python-1.2.5-cp27-none-win_amd64.whl file with zip extractor program.
2. Copy the contents to C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\

As Python newbie learning the Python ecosystem I've just completed this.

1. Install setuptools instructions

2. Install MySQL 5.1. Download the 97.6MB MSI from here You can't use the essentials version because it doesnt contain the C libraries.
   Be sure to select a custom install, and mark the development tools / libraries for installation as that is not done by default. This is needed to get the C header files.
   You can verify you have done this correctly by looking in your install directory for a folder named "include". E.G C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\include. It should have a whole bunch of .h files.

3. Install Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Express 2008 from here This is needed to get a C compiler.

4. Open up a command line as administrator (right click on the Cmd shortcut and then "run as administrator". Be sure to open a fresh window after you have installed those things or your path won't be updated and the install will still fail.

5. From the command prompt:

   easy_install -b C:\temp\sometempdir mysql-python

   That will fail - which is OK.

   Now open site.cfg in your temp directory C:\temp\sometempdir and edit the "registry_key" setting to:

   registry_key = SOFTWARE\MySQL AB\MySQL Server 5.1

   now CD into your temp dir and:

   python setup.py clean

   python setup.py install

   You should be ready to rock!

6. Here is a super simple script to start off learning the Python DB API for you - if you need it.

There are Windows binaries for MySQL-Python (2.4 & 2.5) available on Sourceforge. Have you tried those?

You can also use pyodbc with the MySQL Connector/ODBC to use MySQL on Windows. Unixodbc is also available to make the code compatible on Linux. Pyodbc uses the standard Python DB API 2.0 so if you stick with that switching between MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite/ODBC/JDBC drivers etc. should be relatively painless.

I found a location were one person had successfully built mysql for python2.6, sharing the link, http://www.technicalbard.com/files/MySQL-python-1.2.2.win32-py2.6.exe

...you might see a warning while import MySQLdb which is fine and that won’t hurt anything,

C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\MySQLdb__init__.py:34: DeprecationWarning: the sets module is deprecated from sets import ImmutableSet

You might want to also consider making use of Cygwin, it has mysql python libraries in the repository.

Download page for python-mysqldb. The page includes binaries for 32 and 64 bit versions of for Python 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7.

There's also discussion on getting rid of the deprecation warning.

UPDATE: This is an old answer. Currently, I would recommend using PyMySQL. It's pure python, so it supports all OSes equally, it's almost a drop-in replacement for mysqldb, and it also works with python 3. The best way to install it is using pip. You can install it from here (more instructions here), and then run:

pip install pymysql

This may read like your grandpa givin advice, but all answers here did not mention the best way: go nd install ActivePython instead of python.org windows binaries. I was really wondering for a long time why Python development on windows was such a pita - until I installed activestate python. I am not affiliated with them. It is just the plain truth. Write it on every wall: Python development on Windows = ActiveState! you then just pypm install mysql-python and everything works smoothly. no compile orgy. no strange errors. no terror. Just start coding and doing real work after five minutes. This is the only way to go on windows. Really.

If you are looking for Python 3.2 this seems the best solution I found so far

• for Python 2.4 - 3.2 PyMySQL
• for Python 2.3 - 2.6 MySQL for Python

Source: http://wiki.python.org/moin/MySQL

upvoted itsadok's answer because it led me to the installation for python 2.7 as well, which is located here: http://www.codegood.com/archives/129

Because I am running python in a (pylons/pyramid) virtualenv, I could not run the binary installers (helpfully) linked to previously.

I had problems following the steps with Willie's answer, but I determined that the problem is (probably) that I am running windows 7 x64 install, which puts the registry key for mysql in a slightly different location, specifically in my case (note: I am running version 5.5) in: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\MySQL AB\MySQL Server 5.5".

HOWEVER, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\" cannot be included in the path or it will fail.

Also, I had to do a restart between steps 3 and 4.

After working through all of this, IMO it would have been smarter to run the entire python dev environment from cygwin.

On Python 3.4 I've installed mysqlclient from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ with pip install mysqlclient and it's working.

What about pymysql? It's pure Python, and I've used it on Windows with considerable success, bypassing the difficulties of compiling and installing mysql-python.

Got sick of the installation troubles with MySQLdb and tried pymysql instead.

Easy setup;

git clone https://github.com/petehunt/PyMySQL.git
python setup.py install

And APIs are pretty much the same.

You can try to use myPySQL. It's really easy to use; no compilation for windows, and even if you need to compile it for any reason, you only need Python and Visual C installed (not mysql).

http://code.google.com/p/mypysql/

Good luck

You're not the only person having problems with Python 2.6 and MySQL (http://blog.contriving.net/2009/03/04/using-python-26-mysql-on-windows-is-nearly-impossible/). Here's an explanation how it should run under Python 2.5 http://i.justrealized.com/2008/04/08/how-to-install-python-and-django-in-windows-vista/ Good luck