[BioPython] Help with installing MySQLdb

[Brad Chapman]

Hey Andy;

> I have successfully installed MySQLdb on my mac and then tried to 
> install it on a red hat 7.2 machine
> I installed all the prerequisite libraries for biopyton, but when i try
> import MySQLdb on the redhat machine i get:
> *** You don't have the (right) mxDateTime binaries installed !

I don't exactly know what the problem is since I don't use red hat
and all that, but I guess I'd just listen to the error message and
look at what version of mxDateTime you have installed -- if you even
have it installed at all.

I don't know what version MySQLdb needs (the documentation doesn't
seem to say from a quick glance) but the easiest thing to do is just
grab the latest version:

http://www.egenix.com/files/python/eGenix-mx-Extensions.html#Download-mxBASE

There are Linux RPMs for the latest version 2.0.5.

> is this a path problem? that is python is looking at an older binary 
> first?

If you have it installed and it's not finding it (or finding the
wrong version) you could check by doing:

>>> from mx import DateTime
>>> DateTime.__version__
'2.0.3'

(Although I have 2.0.4 installed, so maybe the version variable
isn't the best ever). 

You can also find out where the DateTime is being imported from
using __file__:

>>> DateTime.__file__
'/usr/local/lib/python2.3/site-packages/mx/DateTime/__init__.pyc'

Hope this helps.
Brad