Installing MySQL for python 2 and 3 on Ubuntu

NB! A more recent update to this tutorial has been published for installing the MySQL connector package in Python 2021.

Installing the MySQL connector package for Python can sometimes be a bit more of a struggle than it should be. There are two separate versions of the MySQL connector package that are used for either Python 2 or 3, you'll need to download the correct package using pip as well as some necessary dependencies in order to use it on your version.

Installing MySQL for Python 2

If you are using Python 2.x, the package you'll need is called MySQL-python. For this you will need to install the following

dependencies

first:

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev libmysqlclient-dev

Before installing this package make sure you have

pip installed

for the correct version of Python. This can be achieved by including your version number within the package name.

sudo apt-get install python2-pip

Next you can

install the MySQL connector

using pip:

sudo pip2 install MySQL-python

If this did not work for any reason you can also attempt to

install it directly from the repository

as "python-mysqldb" instead of using pip.

sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb

Once it is installed you can

import

it into your Python script like so:

import MySQLdb

Installing MySQL for Python 3

If you are using Python 2.x, the package you'll need is called mysql-connector. For this you will need to install the following