The Problem: mysql_config not found
When you try to install mysqlclient using pip, the installation process might fail with an error that looks something like this:
Collecting mysqlclient==2.0.3 (from -r requirements.txt (line 44))
Using cached mysqlclient-2.0.3.tar.gz (88 kB)
Installing build dependencies ... done
Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
error: subprocess-exited-with-error
× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [31 lines of output]
/bin/sh: 1: mysql_config: not found
...
OSError: mysql_config not found
[end of output]
This error typically occurs because mysqlclient requires certain MySQL development libraries to be present on your system. These libraries provide the necessary tools for compiling and linking the mysqlclient package, particularly the mysql_config command, which is used to retrieve information about the MySQL installation.
The Solution: Installing MySQL Development Libraries
To resolve this issue, you need to install the MySQL development libraries on your system. The process is straightforward but varies depending on your operating system.
For Ubuntu/Debian
On Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, you can easily install the required libraries using apt. The package you’re looking for is libmysqlclient-dev. Here’s the command you need to run:
sudo apt install libmysqlclient-dev
For Fedora sudo dnf install mysql-devel
For CentOS/RHEL sudo yum install mysql-devel
For macOS brew install mysql-client
After installing, you’ll also need to make sure that the mysql-client binaries are in your PATH:
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/mysql-client/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
For MariaDB Users
If you’re using MariaDB instead of MySQL, the package you need is slightly different. On Ubuntu, for instance, you would install libmariadb-dev instead of libmysqlclient-dev:
sudo apt install libmariadb-dev
Run pip install -r requirements.txt (or just pip install mysqlclient if you were running solo on that) and you should be good to go. Now you can get back to building your application with one less thing to worry about… happy coding!
