How can I connect to MySQL in Python 3 on Windows?

Question

I am using ActiveState Python 3 on Windows and wanted to connect to my MySQL database. I heard that mysqldb was the module to use. I can't find mysqldb for Python 3.

Is there a repository available where the binaries exist for mysqldb? How can I connect to MySQL in Python 3 on Windows?

Answer 1

There are currently a few options for using Python 3 with mysql:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mysql-connector-python

• Officially supported by Oracle
• Pure python
• A little slow
• Not compatible with MySQLdb

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pymysql

• Pure python
• Faster than mysql-connector
• Almost completely compatible with MySQLdb, after calling pymysql.install_as_MySQLdb()

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cymysql

• fork of pymysql with optional C speedups

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/mysqlclient

• Django's recommended library.
• Friendly fork of the original MySQLdb, hopes to merge back some day
• The fastest implementation, as it is C based.
• The most compatible with MySQLdb, as it is a fork
• Debian and Ubuntu use it to provide both python-mysqldb andpython3-mysqldb packages.

benchmarks here: https://github.com/methane/mysql-driver-benchmarks

Answer 2

You should probably use pymysql - Pure Python MySQL client instead.
It works with Python 3.x, and doesn't have any dependencies.

This pure Python MySQL client provides a DB-API to a MySQL database by talking directly to the server via the binary client/server protocol.

Example:

import pymysql
conn = pymysql.connect(host='127.0.0.1', unix_socket='/tmp/mysql.sock', user='root', passwd=None, db='mysql')
cur = conn.cursor()
cur.execute("SELECT Host,User FROM user")
for r in cur:
    print(r)
cur.close()
conn.close()