MYSQLdb Connection in Python

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MYSQLdb Connection in Python

MYSQLdb Connection in Python

In this article, I have discussed how to connect to MySQL database remotely using python. For any application, it is very important to store the database on a server for easy data access. It is quite complicated to connect to the database remotely because every service provider doesn’t provide remote access to the MySQL database. Here I am using python’s MySQLdb module for connecting to our database which is at any server that provides remote access.

What is MYSQLdb?

MySQLdb is an interface for connecting to a MySQL database server from Python. It implements the Python Database API v2.0 and is built on top of the MySQL C API.
Packages to Install

mysql-connector-python
mysql-python
If using anaconda

conda install -c anaconda mysql-python
conda install -c anaconda mysql-connector-python
else

pip install MySQL-python
pip install MySQL-python-connector
Import-Package

import MYSQLdb

How to connect to a remote MySQL database using python?

Before we start you should know the basics of SQL. Now let us discuss the methods used in this code:

  • connect(): This method is used for creating a connection to our database it has four arguments:
  1. Server Name
  2. Database User Name
  3. Database Provider
  4. Database Name
  • cursor(): This method creates a cursor object that is capable of executing SQL queries on the database.
  • execute(): This method is used for executing SQL queries on the database. It takes a sql query( as string) as an argument.
  • fetchone(): This method retrieves the next row of a query result set and returns a single sequence, or None if no more rows are available.
  • close() : This method close the database connection.Free remote mysql database providers:
    1.www.freemysqlhosting.net
    2.www.heliohost.org

'''This code would not be run on geeksforgeeks IDE
because required module
are not installed on IDE. Also this code requires
a remote MySQL databaseconnection with valid
Hostname, Dbusername Password and Dbname'''

# Module For Connecting To MySQL database
import MySQLdb

# Function for connecting to MySQL database
def mysqlconnect():
#Trying to connect
try:
db_connection= MySQLdb.connect
("Hostname","dbusername","password","dbname")
# If connection is not successful
except:
print("Can't connect to database")
return 0
# If Connection Is Successful
print("Connected")

# Making Cursor Object For Query Execution
cursor=db_connection.cursor()

# Executing Query
cursor.execute("SELECT CURDATE();")

# Above Query Gives Us The Current Date
# Fetching Data
m = cursor.fetchone()

# Printing Result Of Above
print("Today's Date Is ",m[0])

# Closing Database Connection
db_connection.close()

# Function Call For Connecting To Our Database
mysqlconnect()
Connected
Today's Date Is 2017-11-14

# Python code to illustrate and create a
# table in database
import mysql.connector as mysql

# Open database connection
db = mysql.connect(host="localhost",user="root",password="tiger",database="python")

cursor = db.cursor()

# Drop table if it already exist using execute()
cursor.execute("DROP TABLE IF EXISTS EMPLOYEE")

# Create table as per requirement
sql = "CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE ( FNAME CHAR(20) NOT NULL, LNAME CHAR(20), AGE INT )"

cursor.execute(sql) #table created

# disconnect from server
db.close()
Output:

(Next Lesson) Python – Environment Setup