Integrating MySQL with Python in Windows

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

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.

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'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

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

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