Installing python-mysql connector MySQLdb after Snow Leopard upgrade

2009-10-23 223 words 2 minutes

After upgrading to Snow Leopard and all its 64-bit goodness, I discovered that the upgrade to python 2.6.1 64-bit understandably broke my python-mysql connector which was previously compiled against my 32-bit installation of XAMPP with MySQL. I tried several different paths to make the new python play nice with the existing XAMPP installation. Here's the one that worked:

Insure that you have the MySQL include directory needed for compilation against the XAMPP MySQL binary you are running. I'm running a 5.0.x build of MySQL and to get the proper include dir I simply downloaded the 32-bit DMG for Mac from here. After installation, I simply copied the include dir to my xampp installation.
```
cp -R /usr/local/mysql/include /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/
```
Now the xampp version of mysql_config will point to your newly installed include dir, so you are ready to compile against it.
If you don't already have it, grab the python-mysql connector source. I'm using MySQL-python-1.2.3c1

Tell your 64-bit python to always run in 32-bit mode

defaults write com.apple.versioner.python Prefer-32-Bit -bool yes

cd into the MySQL-python source directory and build it for 32-bit mode
```
ARCHFLAGS='-arch i386' python setup.py build
```

install it

ARCHFLAGS='-arch i386' python setup.py install

exit the source directory "cd ~" and test your new install

pythonPython 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Jul  7 2009, 23:51:51)[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwinType "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.>>> import MySQLdb

You're welcome.