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01/29/2023

This is a short tutorial on how to connect to a MySQL database using python.

Dependencies

In order to connect to your database, you first need to install the MySQL Connector Python by entering in the terminal:

pip install mysql-connector-python
Bash

At the top of your script, you need to import the mysql module via:

import mysql.connector
Python

Connecting to the database

To initialize the connection, you need to use mysql.connector.connect():

# initialize database connection
mydb = mysql.connector.connect(
  host     = "host",
  user     = "user",
  passwd   = "password",
  database = "database"
)

# connect to database
mycursor = mydb.cursor()
Python

Select Statement

Here is an example case of a SELECT statement:

# retrieve all user id's, first names, and last names
sql = "SELECT id, first_name, last_name from Users"
mycursor.execute(sql)
users = mycursor.fetchall()

# print the results
for user in users:
  print(user[0], user[1], user[2])  # id, first name, last name
Python

Using parameters

Using parameters in a statement is pretty straightforward. We are going to use the same example above, but only select the rows whose first name is 'Ryan' and last name is 'Smith':

# retrieve all user id's, first names, and last names 
# whose first name is Ryan and last name is Smith
sql = "SELECT id, first_name, last_name FROM Users WHERE first_name = %s AND last_name = %s"
parm_first_name = "Ryan"
parm_last_name = "Smith"

# bind parameters into a tuple
parms = (parm_first_name, parm_last_name)

# execute the statement
mycursor.execute(sql, parms)
users = mycursor.fetchall()

# print the results
for user in users:
  print(user[0], user[1], user[2])  # id, first name, last name
Python

Insert Statement

Here is an example of an INSERT statement:

sql = "INSERT INTO Users (first_name, last_name) VALUES (%s, %s)"

# set parms
first = "George"
last = "Washington"
parms = (first, last)

# execute insert statement
mycursor.execute(sql, val)
mydb.commit()

# print number of inserted records
print(mycursor.rowcount, "record updated.")
Python

© 2025 by Ryan Rickgauer