Dear MySQL users,

MySQL Connector/Python 8.0.19 is the latest GA release version of the
MySQL Connector Python 8.0 series. The X DevAPI enables application
developers to write code that combines the strengths of the relational
and document models using a modern, NoSQL-like syntax that does not
assume previous experience writing traditional SQL.

To learn more about how to write applications using the X DevAPI, see

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/x-devapi-userguide/en/

For more information about how the X DevAPI is implemented in MySQL
Connector/Python, and its usage, see

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/dev/connector-python

Please note that the X DevAPI requires at least MySQL Server …

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MySQL Connector/Python 8 made the C Extension the default for the platform/Python version combinations supporting it. One thing that was missing from the C Extension implementation (unless you used the _mysql_connector module) was support for prepared statements. That has been taken care of with the release of version 8.0.17.

The two main advantages of using prepared statements are security and performance. The security comes in as you can pass query parameters and have them applied server-side, so you are sure they are quoted and escaped correctly taking the data type into consideration. The performance benefit happens, when you execute the same query (except for the parameters) several times as MySQL will prepare it only …

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MySQL Server has since version 5.6 supported connection attributes for the clients. This has allowed a client to provide information such as which program or connector the client is, the client version, the license, etc. The database administrator can use this information for example to verify whether all clients have been upgraded, which client is executing a particular query, and so forth.

In MySQL 8.0.16 this feature has been included for the X DevAPI in the MySQL connectors as well, including MySQL Connector/Python which I will cover in this blog. First though, let’s take a look at how the attributes are exposed in MySQL Server.

The built-in MySQL Connector/Python connection attributesConnection Attributes in MySQL Server

The …

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I few months ago, I wrote about using the Django framework with MySQL 8. There are also other Python frameworks that are worth considering. In this blog, I will look at using SQLAlchemy with MySQL 8.

In order for you to be able to use MySQL 8 with SQLAlchemy, you need three pieces of software: MySQL Server, MySQL Connector/Python, and SQLAlchemy. I will go through the installations, then I will look at a code example.

Information

The examples in this blog uses MySQL Server 8.0.15, MySQL Connector/Python 8.0.15, and SQLAlchemy 1.2.18. It should be possible to reuse the instructions with other MySQL versions as well, except in older MySQL versions you …

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The X DevAPI allows you to work with JSON documents and SQL tables at the same time. Furthermore, the CRUD style API is more intuitive than SQL statements for some programmers. Either way, the X DevAPI allows you to mix JSON documents, SQL tables, CRUD methods, and SQL statements to give you the best of all worlds. In MySQL Connector/Python, the X DevAPI is implemented in the mysqlx module.

This blog will look at how MySQL Connector/Python handles expressions, and how you in version 8.0.14 and later need to use the mysqlx.expr() method to explicitly define expressions.

Information

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MySQL Server has a feature where you can insert data into a table from a file with the data delimited by commas, tabs, or another delimiter. This is particularly useful when you need to bulk import data, for example when restoring a backup or migrating data from one system to another including from another database product than MySQL. The mysqldump backup utility is an example of a program that supports exporting the data to delimited text files.

The statement to load the data is LOAD DATA INFILE. By default the file must be server-side and MySQL …

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The MySQL X DevAPI is the new API that provides a uniform API across the supported programming languages. It has from the beginning supported that you can specify a default schema, when you connect. Originally it was not used for SQL statements. Starting with MySQL 8.0.14 the feature has been extended, so SQL statements take the default schema into consideration as well. This blog will explore how this works using MySQL Connector/Python. If you use a different programming language, the change will work in a similar way.

In order to explore the feature, a sample program is needed. A simple program that prints the MySQL Connector/Python version, queries the city table in the default schema, and either …

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Maybe the biggest new feature in MySQL 8 is the new transaction data dictionary that improves the consistency of schema objects among other things. To further protect the data in the data dictionary, the data dictionary tables are hidden and their content only exposed through the Information Schema. (One exception is when you use the debug binary, then it is possible to get direct access to the data dictionary tables. This is not recommended at all on production systems!)

A side effect of the data dictionary tables being hidden is that those that have had a habit of manipulating the tables directly in MySQL 5.7 and earlier (I will not recommend doing that) will no longer be able to do so. Examples of manipulating the tables include …

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If you have an application that need to use multiple connections to the MySQL database for short periods of times, it can be a good to use a connection pool to avoid creating a new connection and going through the whole authentication process every time a connection is needed. For the Python Database API (PEP249), MySQL Connector/Python has had support for connection pools for a long time. With the release of MySQL 8.0.13, the new X DevAPI also has support for connection pools.

This blog will first cover the background of the X DevAPI connection pool feature in MySQL Connector/Python. Then …

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A framework can be a great way to allow you to spend more time on the actual application or web site and less time on standard tasks. It can also greatly reduce the amount of custom code needed. Django is one of the best known web frameworks for Python, and the good news is that it works out of the box with MySQL Server 8 and MySQL Connector/Python 8. This blog will look at how to use Django with MySQL 8.

There actually is very little to get Django to work with MySQL 8. Just install it, configure Django to use MySQL Connector/Python as a backend, and that’s it. From the Django point of view, you just have to configure the database option in settings.py to use MySQL Connector/Python and your database settings, for example:

DATABASES = { …