I’ve just finished trying to install mysql-python on OSX Leopard, and had quite a few problems. This is the procedure that finally ended up working for me.

First, download mysql-python from here. Unzip and try to build it :

> tar xvzf MySQL-python-1.2.3c1.tar.gz
> cd MySQL-python-1.2.3c1
> sudo python setup.py build

If the build works, you’re in luck… you simply need to install it :

> sudo python setup.py install

More than likely though, it isn’t going to work :) At first, i got an error about LONG_BIT definition appears wrong for platform (bad gcc/glibc config?) :

running buildrunning build_py
copying MySQLdb/release.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.5-i386-2.5/MySQLdb
running build_ext
building '_mysql' extension
/usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -fno-strict-aliasing -Wno-long-double -no-cpp-precomp -mno-fused-madd -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Dversion_info=(1,2,3,'gamma',1) -D__version__=1.2.3c1 -I/usr/local/mysql-5.1.30-osx10.5-x86_64/include -I/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5 -c _mysql.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.5-i386-2.5/_mysql.o -g -Os -arch x86_64 -fno-common -D_P1003_1B_VISIBLE -DSIGNAL_WITH_VIO_CLOSE -DSIGNALS_DONT_BREAK_READ -DIGNORE_SIGHUP_SIGQUIT -DDONT_DECLARE_CXA_PURE_VIRTUAL
In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5/Python.h:57,
                 from pymemcompat.h:10,
                 from _mysql.c:29:
/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5/pyport.h:761:2: error: #error "LONG_BIT definition appears wrong for platform (bad gcc/glibc config?)."
In file included from _mysql.c:36:
/usr/local/mysql-5.1.30-osx10.5-x86_64/include/my_config.h:1104:1: warning: "SIZEOF_LONG" redefined
In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5/Python.h:8,
                 from pymemcompat.h:10,
                 from _mysql.c:29:
/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5/pyconfig.h:814:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
error: command '/usr/bin/gcc-4.0' failed with exit status 1

To get around this, edit the file mentioned in the error ( /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5/pyport.h) and comment out the line mentioned in the error (line 761 in the current version) :

/* 04-Oct-2000 LONG_BIT is apparently (mis)defined as 64 on some recent
 * 32-bit platforms using gcc.  We try to catch that here at compile-time
 * rather than waiting for integer multiplication to trigger bogus
 * overflows.
 */
/*#error "LONG_BIT definition appears wrong for platform (bad gcc/glibc config?)."*/

At this point, hopefully you can build and install without problems :

> sudo python setup.py build
> sudo python setup.py install

Even after i managed to install it, i continued to get the following error :

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Error loading MySQLdb module: dynamic module does not define init function (init_mysql)

After a bit of digging around, it turns out that this is caused by running a 32-bit version of python alongside a 64-bit version of MySQL.

We need to uninstall the 64-bit version first. I found some great instructions on akrabat.com :

Once this is done, download and install the Mac OS X 10.5 (x86) version from the mysql site (make sure you don’t get the x86_64 version again!), and with a bit of luck everything should be working.