Python with MySQL on Windows: installation errors

Question

I tried to run the following command, in the folder of my Django project:

$ python manage.py dbshell

It shows me this error:

$python manage.py dbshell
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 11, in <module>
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line
362, in execute_manager
    utility.execute()
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\__init__.py", line
303, in execute
    self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\base.py", line 195,
 in run_from_argv
    self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\base.py", line 222,
 in execute
    output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\base.py", line 351,
 in handle
    return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\core\management\commands\dbshell.py
", line 9, in handle_noargs
    from django.db import connection
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\db\__init__.py", line 41, in <modul
e>
    backend = load_backend(settings.DATABASE_ENGINE)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\db\__init__.py", line 17, in load_b
ackend
    return import_module('.base', 'django.db.backends.%s' % backend_name)
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\django\utils\importlib.py", line 35, in im
port_module
    __import__(name)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\django\db\backends\mysql\base.py", line 13
, in <module>
    raise ImproperlyConfigured("Error loading MySQLdb module: %s" % e)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: No mo
dule named MySQLdb

First question is, why does Python not simply include this MySQLdb module?

OK, just fine, try to search to solve this message.

I have looked around stackoverflow.com for installing this module but did not have a good result.

Download this module at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python/

Comes to the installation of this module on my Windows Vista system. After the extraction of the package, I run the cmd prompt to continue with the installation:

$ python setup.py install

Again it showed me one other message:

D:\SOFTWARE\PROGRAMMING\MySQL-python-1.2.3c1>python setup.py install
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 5, in <module>
    from setuptools import setup, Extension
ImportError: No module named setuptools

Playing around with this error message, I know that there is the ez_setup.py within the package:

$python ez_setup.py

It seems that everything is OK:

D:\SOFTWARE\PROGRAMMING\MySQL-python-1.2.3c1>python ez_setup.py
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.5/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c9-py
2.5.egg
Processing setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5.egg
Copying setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5.egg to c:\python25\lib\site-packages
Adding setuptools 0.6c9 to easy-install.pth file
Installing easy_install-script.py script to C:\Python25\Scripts
Installing easy_install.exe script to C:\Python25\Scripts
Installing easy_install-2.5-script.py script to C:\Python25\Scripts
Installing easy_install-2.5.exe script to C:\Python25\Scripts

Installed c:\python25\lib\site-packages\setuptools-0.6c9-py2.5.egg
Processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c9
Finished processing dependencies for setuptools==0.6c9

Now comes back to the setup.py to install again:

$python setup.py install

It again gave me one other error message:

D:\SOFTWARE\PROGRAMMING\MySQL-python-1.2.3c1>python setup.py install
running install
running bdist_egg
....
copying MySQLdb\constants\CLIENT.py -> build\lib.win32-2.5\MySQLdb\constants
running build_ext
error: Python was built with Visual Studio 2003;
extensions must be built with a compiler than can generate compatible binaries.
Visual Studio 2003 was not found on this system. If you have Cygwin installed,
you can try compiling with MingW32, by passing "-c mingw32" to setup.py.

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

I once had the same problem running Python and MySQL on the same computer. Like the guys/gals said above, Python does not come with built-in support for MySQL, so you will need to download the connectors.

The link given above by @kibitzer will most likely not work on Windows successfully, so go here to download a copy of the connector that works with windows. It comes with installer and no need to run setup.py script manually.

Answer 2

Uh, this isn't Django, this is you downloading some unspecified Python environment and expecting it to magically do everything exactly the way you wanted it to. Find a good tutorial on this and follow the instructions.

BTW, this is a very helpful forum, but giving no specifics and then delivering a non-question with an attitude is not a good way to get people to feel helpful.

Answer 3

Did you try looking here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python/files/

That is the download area of MySQLdb project, it has nothing to do with django, so your question is incorrect - django does not make switching database backends hard, you just change one line. And of course, your python installation should support that database first, so by downloading binary package for Windows from the link I gave above (chose correct version to match your version of python) you can avoid all the hassle of compiling the source release.

Most probably you need either MySQL-python-1.2.2.win32-py2.5.exe or MySQL-python-1.2.2.win32-py2.4.exe