mysql for python win_Install MySQL for Python (MySQLdb) on Windows

It took me quite a while to figure out how to build and install MySQL for Python (MySQLdb) on Windows. I’d better write it down.

There is no binary distribution of MySQLdb for Python 2.6 on Windows. I have to build it from the source. My environment is Windows XP. MySQL 5.1. Python 2.6 (windows version, not cygwin), and MySQL-python-1.2.3c1. Also, I have Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition (Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0) installed, which is required to compile the C code in MySQL-python.

First of all, install Python setuptools, if you haven’t installed it. It is required in MySQL-python setup.py. I also added C:\Python26\Scripts into environment PATH, where easy_install is installed.

Then, make sure you have MySQL Developer Components installed. Download MySQL msi installer version, select “Developer Components” in Custom Setup. It will install C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.1\include, lib\debug and lib\opt for you. They are not installed by default.

Uncompress MySQL-python-1.2.3c1.tar.gz into a directory. Open a command window (cmd), change to the directory.

Try to run,

setup.py build

I got this error in setup_windows.py:

in get_config

serverKey = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, options['registry_key'])

WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified

So I edited site.cfg, changed the MySQL version from 5.0 to 5.1 (since I am using 5.1)

registry_key = SOFTWARE\MySQL AB\MySQL Server 5.1

You can use regedit to check which version you are using. It is specified at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/MySQL AB/MySQL Server 5.1.

Now try to build it again. I got this error:

build\temp.win32-2.6\Release\_mysql.pyd.manifest : general error c1010070: Failed to load and parse the manifest. The system cannot find  the file specified.

error: command ‘mt.exe’ failed with exit status 31

To fix this problem, go to C:\Python26\Lib\distutils, edit msvc9compiler.py, search for ‘MANIFESTFILE’, you will find the following line

ld_args.append(‘/MANIFESTFILE:’ + temp_manifest)

Then append the following line after the above line,

ld_args.append(‘/MANIFEST’)

Then go back to run “setup.py build”, it will succeed. Finally, run

setup.py install

Test it in python

>>> import MySQLdb

>>>