Problems with MySQLdb - open letter to Andy D

[Gerald Forster]

Dear Andy,

MySQLdb is a software package which is very important for software developers around the globe. Thank you for your work!

At the moment it looks as if there are some improvements necessary in version management and quality control.

There has been a - silent? - interface change between versions 1.2.1c3 and 1.2.1_p2.
Old version: cursor.execute() takes a String as argument.
New version: cursor.execute() is expecting a Unicode object.
As a result many developers are struggling with broken applications or will struggle in the near future.
e. g. after upgrading from Ubuntu 6.06 to 6.10

Right now there doesn't seem to exist a "production ready" version of MySQLdb which works under Linux AND Windows.

There is nobody responsible for testing under Windows.
But: project summary states "32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP)"

I know how hard it is to bring all these things together:
- Different OS-platforms
- Different hardware architectures
- Different versions of Python
- Different versions of MySQL
- Different character encodings

Please tell developers, which things fit and which do not.

Best wishes and best regards
Gerald

[Andy Dustman]

String vs. unicode queries: Already fixed in 1.2.2 betas, has been for months. The fix is basically one line (in a couple places).

There are people responsible for testing under Windows. They're called "Windows users".

Developers need to tell me what works and what doesn't. I can only test a limited number of platform/hardware combinations.