mysqlclient/MySQLdb/README

Warning:

  If you fail to read all of this document and ask questions that are
  already answered, I reserve the right to verbally abuse you.


Binary Packages:

  I don't plan to make binary packages any more. However, if someone
  contributes one, I will make it available.


Prerequisites:

  Python 1.5.2 or higher

   * http://www.python.org/

   * Versions lower than 1.5.2 WON'T WORK.

   * All versions from 1.5.2 should work. 1.6.x versions have not been
     tested. All of the recent testing has been done with 2.3.x.

   * Red Hat Linux:

     o Make sure you have the Python development headers
       and libraries (python-devel).


  Distutils 1.0.2 or higher

    * comes starting with Python 1.6

    * 1.0.2 is included in Python version 2.1 and newer

    * http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/download.html


  MySQL 3.22.19 or higher

    * http://www.mysql.com/downloads/

    * Versions lower than 3.22 definitely WON'T WORK.

    * Versions lower than 3.22.19 might not work.

    * MySQL-4.1 is not yet supported, and probably won't be until
      MySQLdb-1.3 or 2.0. Current release 4.1.2 (alpha).
      
    * MySQL-4.0 is supported, and all recent testing is with 4.0.x.

    * MySQL-3.23 is supported, but slightly deprecated.

    * MySQL-3.22 is deprecated in favor of 3.23, but still supported.

    * Red Hat Linux packages:

      o mysql-devel to compile

      o mysql and/or mysql-devel to run

    * MySQL.com RPM packages:

      o MySQL-devel to compile

      o MySQL-shared if you want to use their shared
        library. Otherwise you'll get a statically-linked module,
        which may or may not be what you want.

      o MySQL-shared to run if you compiled with MySQL-shared installed

    * Transactions (particularly InnoDB tables) are supported for
      MySQL-3.23 and up. You may need a special package from your
      vendor with this support turned on.
      

  zlib

    * Required for MySQL-3.23 and newer.

    * Red Hat Linux

      o zlib-devel to compile

      o zlib to run


  A C COMPILER!!!

    * Most free software-based systems already have this, usually gcc.

    * Most commercial UNIX platforms also come with a C compiler, or
      you can also use gcc.

    * If you have some Windows flavor, you usually have to pay extra
      for this, or you can use Cygwin.


Building and installing

  First thing to do is read setup.py. There are some variables towards
  the beginning that tell it where your MySQL include files and
  libraries are, compiler flags, loader flags, etc. You will rarely
  have to change this unless you have some kind of weird setup.

  After the main variables section, there is some platform-specific
  configuration. If your platform is not listed, this is where you
  want to add it. Note that most POSIX and UNIX-ish systems will work
  just fine the way it is.

  If you have an old version of distutils (pre-1.0.2), upgrade, or
  remove the parameters that are complained about. Upgrading distutils
  is the smart way to go.

  Depending on which version of MySQL you have, you may have the
  option of using three different client libraries:

    mysqlclient -- mostly but not guaranteed thread-safe

    mysqlclient_r -- thread-safe, use if you can

    mysqld -- embedded server

  mysqlclient is used by default. To use one of the others, set
  the environment variable mysqlclient to the name of the library
  you want to use.

  There are several active versions of MySQL out there, and this
  makes it a little tricky to configure setup.py automatically and
  still be cross-platform. setup.py assumes you are using version
  3.23.32. To specify a different version, set the environment
  variable mysqlversion.

  If your MySQL is compiled with certain options, you may need to
  add some more libraries to the link. In particular, with 4.0 and
  up, if MySQL was configured to use SSL, you need to link against
  crypto and ssl. You can do this by setting the environment
  variable mysqloptlibs a space-separated list of libraries.
  
  If you have the dynamic client libraries (on Linux, .so vs. .a),
  those will be used by default. If they are not on your standard
  loader path, you will have to set or adjust the LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  environment variable (on Linux) or whatever your platform
  requires. Otherwise, you can adjust setup.py to link against the
  static library. If you are using standard RPM packaging, you
  shouldn't have to mess with this. If you compiled MySQL yourself,
  you might. There is a runtime_libraries_dir variable you can play
  with, but this does not work on all system; in particular, it
  doesn't seem to work on Linux gcc.

  Finally, putting it together:

  $ tar xfz MySQL-python-1.0.0.tar.gz
  $ cd MySQL-python-1.0.0
  $ export mysqlversion="4.0.20"
  $ export mysqlclient="mysqlclient_r"
  $ export mysqloptlibs="ssl crypto"
  $ python setup.py build
  $ su
  # python setup.py install

  NOTE: You must export environment variables for setup.py to see
  them.  Depending on what shell you prefer, you may need to use
  "export" or "set -x" (bash and other Bourne-like shells) or "setenv"
  (csh-like shells).
  
  Windows

    I don't do Windows. However if someone provides me with a package
    for Windows, I'll make it available. Don't ask me for help with
    Windows because I can't help you.


  Zope

    If you are using a binary package of Zope, you need run setup.py
    with the python executable that came with Zope. Otherwise, you'll
    install into the wrong Python tree and Zope (ZMySQLDA) will not be
    able to find _mysql.

    With zope.org's Zope-2.5.1-linux2-x86 binary tarball, you'd do
    something like this:

    $ export ZOPEBIN=".../Zope-2.5.1-linux2-x86/bin" # wherever you unpacked it
    $ $ZOPEBIN/python setup.py install # builds and installs


  RPMs

    If you prefer RPMs, you can use the bdist_rpm command with
    setup.py. This only builds the RPM; it does not install it. You
    may want to use the --python=XXX option, where XXX is the name of
    the Python executable, i.e. python, python2, python2.1; the
    default is python. Using this will incorporate the Python
    executable name into the package name for the RPM so you have
    install the package multiple times if you need to support more
    than one version of Python.


  Red Hat Linux

    MySQL-python is pre-packaged in Red Hat Linux 7.x and newer.


  Debian GNU/Linux

    Packaged as python-mysql.

      http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

  Gentoo Linux

    It's in the portage tree. Gentoo is also my development platform.

      # emerge sync
      # emerge mysql-python
      # emerge zmysqlda # if you use Zope

  *BSD

    MySQL-python is a ported package in FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD,
    although the name may vary to match OS conventions.


Acknowledgements

  Thanks go to Brian Fordham for cooking up an early version of setup.py.

  See the CHANGELOG for other individual contributions.


License

  GPL or the original license based on Python 1.5.2's license.


  Andy Dustman <andy@dustman.net>
  2004-06-06 (D-Day + 60)