# SQLAlchemy 0.8 Documentation

Search:
Release: 0.8.2 | Release Date: July 3, 2013

# MySQL

Support for the MySQL database.

## DBAPI Support

The following dialect/DBAPI options are available. Please refer to individual DBAPI sections for connect information.

- MySQL-Python
- OurSQL
- PyMySQL
- MySQL Connector/Python
- CyMySQL
- Google Cloud SQL
- PyODBC
- zxjdbc for Jython

## Supported Versions and Features

SQLAlchemy supports MySQL starting with version 4.1 through modern releases. However, no heroic measures are taken to work around major missing SQL features - if your server version does not support sub-selects, for example, they won’t work in SQLAlchemy either.

See the official MySQL documentation for detailed information about features supported in any given server release.

## Connection Timeouts

MySQL features an automatic connection close behavior, for connections that have been idle for eight hours or more. To circumvent having this issue, use the `pool_recycle` option which controls the maximum age of any connection:

    engine = create_engine('mysql+mysqldb://...', pool_recycle=3600)

## Storage Engines

Most MySQL server installations have a default table type of `MyISAM`, a non-transactional table type. During a transaction, non-transactional storage engines do not participate and continue to store table changes in autocommit mode. For fully atomic transactions as well as support for foreign key constraints, all participating tables must use a transactional engine such as `InnoDB`, `Falcon`, `SolidDB`, PBXT, etc.

Storage engines can be elected when creating tables in SQLAlchemy by supplying a `mysql_engine='whatever'` to the `Table` constructor. Any MySQL table creation option can be specified in this syntax:

    Table('mytable', metadata,
          Column('data', String(32)),
          mysql_engine='InnoDB',
          mysql_charset='utf8'
         )

See also

The InnoDB Storage Engine - on the MySQL website.

## Case Sensitivity and Table Reflection

MySQL has inconsistent support for case-sensitive identifier names, basing support on specific details of the underlying operating system. However, it has been observed that no matter what case sensitivity behavior is present, the names of tables in foreign key declarations are always received from the database as all-lower case, making it impossible to accurately reflect a schema where inter-related tables use mixed-case identifier names.

Therefore it is strongly advised that table names be declared as all lower case both within SQLAlchemy as well as on the MySQL database itself, especially if database reflection features are to be used.

## Transaction Isolation Level

`create_engine()` accepts an `isolation_level` parameter which results in the command `SET SESSION TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL <level>` being invoked for every new connection. Valid values for this parameter are `READ COMMITTED`, `READ UNCOMMITTED`, `REPEATABLE READ`, and `SERIALIZABLE`:

    engine = create_engine(
                    "mysql://scott:tiger@localhost/test",
                    isolation_level="READ UNCOMMITTED"
                )

New in version 0.7.6.

## Keys

Not all MySQL storage engines support foreign keys. For `MyISAM` and similar engines, the information loaded by table reflection will not include foreign keys. For these tables, you may supply a `ForeignKeyConstraint` at reflection time:

    Table('mytable', metadata,
          ForeignKeyConstraint(['other_id'], ['othertable.other_id']),
          autoload=True
         )

When creating tables, SQLAlchemy will automatically set `AUTO_INCREMENT` on an integer primary key column:

    >>> t = Table('mytable', metadata,
    ...   Column('mytable_id', Integer, primary_key=True)
    ... )
    >>> t.create()
    CREATE TABLE mytable (
            id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
            PRIMARY KEY (id)
    )

You can disable this behavior by supplying `autoincrement=False` to the `Column`. This flag can also be used to enable auto-increment on a secondary column in a multi-column key for some storage engines:

    Table('mytable', metadata,
          Column('gid', Integer, primary_key=True, autoincrement=False),
          Column('id', Integer, primary_key=True)
         )

## Ansi Quoting Style

MySQL features two varieties of identifier “quoting style”, one using backticks and the other using quotes, e.g. ``some_identifier`` vs. `"some_identifier"`. All MySQL dialects detect which version is in use by checking the value of `sql_mode` when a connection is first established with a particular `Engine`. This quoting style comes into play when rendering table and column names as well as when reflecting existing database structures. The detection is entirely automatic and no special configuration is needed to use either quoting style.

Changed in version 0.6: detection of ANSI quoting style is entirely automatic, there’s no longer any end-user `create_engine()` options in this regard.

## MySQL SQL Extensions

Many of the MySQL SQL extensions are handled through SQLAlchemy’s generic function and operator support:

    table.select(table.c.password==func.md5('plaintext'))
    table.select(table.c.username.op('regexp')('^[a-d]'))

And of course any valid MySQL statement can be executed as a string as well.

Some limited direct support for MySQL extensions to SQL is currently available.

- SELECT pragma:

      select(..., prefixes=['HIGH_PRIORITY', 'SQL_SMALL_RESULT'])

- UPDATE with LIMIT:

      update(..., mysql_limit=10)

## rowcount Support

SQLAlchemy standardizes the DBAPI `cursor.rowcount` attribute to be the usual definition of “number of rows matched by an UPDATE or DELETE” statement. This is in contradiction to the default setting on most MySQL DBAPI drivers, which is “number of rows actually modified/deleted”. For this reason, the SQLAlchemy MySQL dialects always set the `constants.CLIENT.FOUND_ROWS` flag, or whatever is equivalent for the DBAPI in use, on connect, unless the flag value is overridden using DBAPI-specific options (such as `client_flag` for the MySQL-Python driver, `found_rows` for the OurSQL driver).

See also:

`ResultProxy.rowcount`

## CAST Support

MySQL documents the CAST operator as available in version 4.0.2. When using the SQLAlchemy `cast()` function, SQLAlchemy will not render the CAST token on MySQL before this version, based on server version detection, instead rendering the internal expression directly.

CAST may still not be desirable on an early MySQL version post-4.0.2, as it didn’t add all datatype support until 4.1.1. If your application falls into this narrow area, the behavior of CAST can be controlled using the Custom SQL Constructs and Compilation Extension system, as per the recipe below:

    from sqlalchemy.sql.expression import Cast
    from sqlalchemy.ext.compiler import compiles

    @compiles(Cast, 'mysql')
    def _check_mysql_version(element, compiler, **kw):
        if compiler.dialect.server_version_info < (4, 1, 0):
            return compiler.process(element.clause, **kw)
        else:
            return compiler.visit_cast(element, **kw)

The above function, which only needs to be declared once within an application, overrides the compilation of the `cast()` construct to check for version 4.1.0 before fully rendering CAST; else the internal element of the construct is rendered directly.

## MySQL Specific Index Options

MySQL-specific extensions to the `Index` construct are available.

### Index Length

MySQL provides an option to create index entries with a certain length, where “length” refers to the number of characters or bytes in each value which will become part of the index. SQLAlchemy provides this feature via the `mysql_length` parameter:

    Index('my_index', my_table.c.data, mysql_length=10)

    Index('a_b_idx', my_table.c.a, my_table.c.b, mysql_length={'a': 4, 'b': 9})

Prefix lengths are given in characters for nonbinary string types and in bytes for binary string types. The value passed to the keyword argument must be either an integer (and, thus, specify the same prefix length value for all columns of the index) or a dict in which keys are column names and values are prefix length values for corresponding columns. MySQL only allows a length for a column of an index if it is for a CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, BINARY, VARBINARY and BLOB.

New in version 0.8.2: `mysql_length` may now be specified as a dictionary for use with composite indexes.

### Index Types

Some MySQL storage engines permit you to specify an index type when creating an index or primary key constraint. SQLAlchemy provides this feature via the `mysql_using` parameter on `Index`:

    Index('my_index', my_table.c.data, mysql_using='hash')

As well as the `mysql_using` parameter on `PrimaryKeyConstraint`:

    PrimaryKeyConstraint("data", mysql_using='hash')

The value passed to the keyword argument will be simply passed through to the underlying CREATE INDEX or PRIMARY KEY clause, so it must be a valid index type for your MySQL storage engine.

More information can be found at:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/create-index.html

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/create-table.html

## MySQL Data Types

As with all SQLAlchemy dialects, all UPPERCASE types that are known to be valid with MySQL are importable from the top level dialect:

    from sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql import \
            BIGINT, BINARY, BIT, BLOB, BOOLEAN, CHAR, DATE, \
            DATETIME, DECIMAL, DECIMAL, DOUBLE, ENUM, FLOAT, INTEGER, \
            LONGBLOB, LONGTEXT, MEDIUMBLOB, MEDIUMINT, MEDIUMTEXT, NCHAR, \
            NUMERIC, NVARCHAR, REAL, SET, SMALLINT, TEXT, TIME, TIMESTAMP, \
            TINYBLOB, TINYINT, TINYTEXT, VARBINARY, VARCHAR, YEAR

Types which are specific to MySQL, or have MySQL-specific construction arguments, are as follows:

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``BIGINT`(display_width=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._IntegerType`, `sqlalchemy.types.BIGINT`

  MySQL BIGINTEGER type.

  `__init__`(display_width=None, **kw)

    Construct a BIGINTEGER.

    Parameters: | display_width – Optional, maximum display width for this number. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``BINARY`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types._Binary`

  The SQL BINARY type.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``BIT`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.TypeEngine`

  MySQL BIT type.

  This type is for MySQL 5.0.3 or greater for MyISAM, and 5.0.5 or greater for MyISAM, MEMORY, InnoDB and BDB. For older versions, use a MSTinyInteger() type.

  `__init__`(length=None)

    Construct a BIT.

    Parameters: | length – Optional, number of bits.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``BLOB`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.LargeBinary`

  The SQL BLOB type.

  `__init__`(length=None)

    Construct a LargeBinary type.

    Parameters: | length – optional, a length for the column for use in DDL statements, for those BLOB types that accept a length (i.e. MySQL). It does not produce a small BINARY/VARBINARY type - use the BINARY/VARBINARY types specifically for those. May be safely omitted if no `CREATE TABLE` will be issued. Certain databases may require a length for use in DDL, and will raise an exception when the `CREATE TABLE` DDL is issued.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``BOOLEAN`(create_constraint=True, name=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.Boolean`

  The SQL BOOLEAN type.

  `__init__`(create_constraint=True, name=None)

    Construct a Boolean.

    Parameters: | create_constraint – defaults to True. If the boolean is generated as an int/smallint, also create a CHECK constraint on the table that ensures 1 or 0 as a value. name – if a CHECK constraint is generated, specify the name of the constraint.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``CHAR`(length=None, **kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`, `sqlalchemy.types.CHAR`

  MySQL CHAR type, for fixed-length character data.

  `__init__`(length=None, **kwargs)

    Construct a CHAR.

    Parameters: | length – Maximum data length, in characters. binary – Optional, use the default binary collation for the national character set. This does not affect the type of data stored, use a BINARY type for binary data. collation – Optional, request a particular collation. Must be compatible with the national character set.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``DATE`(*args, **kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.Date`

  The SQL DATE type.

  `__init__`(*args, **kwargs)

    Support implementations that were passing arguments

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``DATETIME`(timezone=False)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.DateTime`

  The SQL DATETIME type.

  `__init__`(timezone=False)

    Construct a new `DateTime`.

    Parameters: | timezone – boolean. If True, and supported by the

    backend, will produce ‘TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE’. For backends that don’t support timezone aware timestamps, has no effect.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``DECIMAL`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._NumericType`, `sqlalchemy.types.DECIMAL`

  MySQL DECIMAL type.

  `__init__`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

    Construct a DECIMAL.

    Parameters: | precision – Total digits in this number. If scale and precision are both None, values are stored to limits allowed by the server. scale – The number of digits after the decimal point. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``DOUBLE`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._FloatType`

  MySQL DOUBLE type.

  `__init__`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

    Construct a DOUBLE.

    Parameters: | precision – Total digits in this number. If scale and precision are both None, values are stored to limits allowed by the server. scale – The number of digits after the decimal point. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``ENUM`(*enums, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.Enum`, `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`

  MySQL ENUM type.

  `__init__`(*enums, **kw)

    Construct an ENUM.

    Example:

    > Column(‘myenum’, MSEnum(“foo”, “bar”, “baz”))

    Parameters: | enums – The range of valid values for this ENUM. Values will be quoted when generating the schema according to the quoting flag (see below). strict – Defaults to False: ensure that a given value is in this ENUM’s range of permissible values when inserting or updating rows. Note that MySQL will not raise a fatal error if you attempt to store an out of range value- an alternate value will be stored instead. (See MySQL ENUM documentation.) charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data. quoting – Defaults to ‘auto’: automatically determine enum value quoting. If all enum values are surrounded by the same quoting character, then use ‘quoted’ mode. Otherwise, use ‘unquoted’ mode. ‘quoted’: values in enums are already quoted, they will be used directly when generating the schema - this usage is deprecated. ‘unquoted’: values in enums are not quoted, they will be escaped and surrounded by single quotes when generating the schema. Previous versions of this type always required manually quoted values to be supplied; future versions will always quote the string literals for you. This is a transitional option.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``FLOAT`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=False, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._FloatType`, `sqlalchemy.types.FLOAT`

  MySQL FLOAT type.

  `__init__`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=False, **kw)

    Construct a FLOAT.

    Parameters: | precision – Total digits in this number. If scale and precision are both None, values are stored to limits allowed by the server. scale – The number of digits after the decimal point. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``INTEGER`(display_width=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._IntegerType`, `sqlalchemy.types.INTEGER`

  MySQL INTEGER type.

  `__init__`(display_width=None, **kw)

    Construct an INTEGER.

    Parameters: | display_width – Optional, maximum display width for this number. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``LONGBLOB`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types._Binary`

  MySQL LONGBLOB type, for binary data up to 2^32 bytes.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``LONGTEXT`(**kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`

  MySQL LONGTEXT type, for text up to 2^32 characters.

  `__init__`(**kwargs)

    Construct a LONGTEXT.

    Parameters: | charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. national – Optional. If true, use the server’s configured national character set. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``MEDIUMBLOB`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types._Binary`

  MySQL MEDIUMBLOB type, for binary data up to 2^24 bytes.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``MEDIUMINT`(display_width=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._IntegerType`

  MySQL MEDIUMINTEGER type.

  `__init__`(display_width=None, **kw)

    Construct a MEDIUMINTEGER

    Parameters: | display_width – Optional, maximum display width for this number. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``MEDIUMTEXT`(**kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`

  MySQL MEDIUMTEXT type, for text up to 2^24 characters.

  `__init__`(**kwargs)

    Construct a MEDIUMTEXT.

    Parameters: | charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. national – Optional. If true, use the server’s configured national character set. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``NCHAR`(length=None, **kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`, `sqlalchemy.types.NCHAR`

  MySQL NCHAR type.

  For fixed-length character data in the server’s configured national character set.

  `__init__`(length=None, **kwargs)

    Construct an NCHAR.

    Parameters: | length – Maximum data length, in characters. binary – Optional, use the default binary collation for the national character set. This does not affect the type of data stored, use a BINARY type for binary data. collation – Optional, request a particular collation. Must be compatible with the national character set.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``NUMERIC`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._NumericType`, `sqlalchemy.types.NUMERIC`

  MySQL NUMERIC type.

  `__init__`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

    Construct a NUMERIC.

    Parameters: | precision – Total digits in this number. If scale and precision are both None, values are stored to limits allowed by the server. scale – The number of digits after the decimal point. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``NVARCHAR`(length=None, **kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`, `sqlalchemy.types.NVARCHAR`

  MySQL NVARCHAR type.

  For variable-length character data in the server’s configured national character set.

  `__init__`(length=None, **kwargs)

    Construct an NVARCHAR.

    Parameters: | length – Maximum data length, in characters. binary – Optional, use the default binary collation for the national character set. This does not affect the type of data stored, use a BINARY type for binary data. collation – Optional, request a particular collation. Must be compatible with the national character set.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``REAL`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._FloatType`, `sqlalchemy.types.REAL`

  MySQL REAL type.

  `__init__`(precision=None, scale=None, asdecimal=True, **kw)

    Construct a REAL.

    Parameters: | precision – Total digits in this number. If scale and precision are both None, values are stored to limits allowed by the server. scale – The number of digits after the decimal point. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``SET`(*values, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`

  MySQL SET type.

  `__init__`(*values, **kw)

    Construct a SET.

    Example:

        Column('myset', MSSet("'foo'", "'bar'", "'baz'"))

    Parameters: | values – The range of valid values for this SET. Values will be used exactly as they appear when generating schemas. Strings must be quoted, as in the example above. Single-quotes are suggested for ANSI compatibility and are required for portability to servers with ANSI_QUOTES enabled. charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``SMALLINT`(display_width=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._IntegerType`, `sqlalchemy.types.SMALLINT`

  MySQL SMALLINTEGER type.

  `__init__`(display_width=None, **kw)

    Construct a SMALLINTEGER.

    Parameters: | display_width – Optional, maximum display width for this number. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TEXT`(length=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`, `sqlalchemy.types.TEXT`

  MySQL TEXT type, for text up to 2^16 characters.

  `__init__`(length=None, **kw)

    Construct a TEXT.

    Parameters: | length – Optional, if provided the server may optimize storage by substituting the smallest TEXT type sufficient to store `length` characters. charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. national – Optional. If true, use the server’s configured national character set. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TIME`(timezone=False, fsp=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.TIME`

  MySQL TIME type.

  Recent versions of MySQL add support for fractional seconds precision. While the `mysql.TIME` type now supports this, note that many DBAPI drivers may not yet include support.

  `__init__`(timezone=False, fsp=None)

    Construct a MySQL TIME type.

    Parameters: | timezone – not used by the MySQL dialect. fsp – fractional seconds precision value. MySQL 5.6 supports storage of fractional seconds; this parameter will be used when emitting DDL for the TIME type. Note that many DBAPI drivers may not yet have support for fractional seconds, however.

    New in version 0.8: The MySQL-specific TIME type as well as fractional seconds support.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TIMESTAMP`(timezone=False)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.TIMESTAMP`

  MySQL TIMESTAMP type.

  `__init__`(timezone=False)

    Construct a new `DateTime`.

    Parameters: | timezone – boolean. If True, and supported by the

    backend, will produce ‘TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE’. For backends that don’t support timezone aware timestamps, has no effect.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TINYBLOB`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types._Binary`

  MySQL TINYBLOB type, for binary data up to 2^8 bytes.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TINYINT`(display_width=None, **kw)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._IntegerType`

  MySQL TINYINT type.

  `__init__`(display_width=None, **kw)

    Construct a TINYINT.

    Parameters: | display_width – Optional, maximum display width for this number. unsigned – a boolean, optional. zerofill – Optional. If true, values will be stored as strings left-padded with zeros. Note that this does not effect the values returned by the underlying database API, which continue to be numeric.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``TINYTEXT`(**kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`

  MySQL TINYTEXT type, for text up to 2^8 characters.

  `__init__`(**kwargs)

    Construct a TINYTEXT.

    Parameters: | charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. national – Optional. If true, use the server’s configured national character set. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``VARBINARY`(length=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types._Binary`

  The SQL VARBINARY type.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``VARCHAR`(length=None, **kwargs)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.base._StringType`, `sqlalchemy.types.VARCHAR`

  MySQL VARCHAR type, for variable-length character data.

  `__init__`(length=None, **kwargs)

    Construct a VARCHAR.

    Parameters: | charset – Optional, a column-level character set for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘ascii’ or ‘unicode’ short-hand. collation – Optional, a column-level collation for this string value. Takes precedence to ‘binary’ short-hand. ascii – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `latin1` character set, generates ASCII in schema. unicode – Defaults to False: short-hand for the `ucs2` character set, generates UNICODE in schema. national – Optional. If true, use the server’s configured national character set. binary – Defaults to False: short-hand, pick the binary collation type that matches the column’s character set. Generates BINARY in schema. This does not affect the type of data stored, only the collation of character data.

class `sqlalchemy.dialects.mysql.``YEAR`(display_width=None)

  Bases: `sqlalchemy.types.TypeEngine`

  MySQL YEAR type, for single byte storage of years 1901-2155.

## MySQL-Python

Support for the MySQL database via the MySQL-Python driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for MySQL-Python is available at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+mysqldb://<user>:<password>@<host>[:<port>]/<dbname>

### Unicode

MySQLdb will accommodate Python `unicode` objects if the `use_unicode=1` parameter, or the `charset` parameter, is passed as a connection argument.

Without this setting, many MySQL server installations default to a `latin1` encoding for client connections, which has the effect of all data being converted into `latin1`, even if you have `utf8` or another character set configured on your tables and columns. With versions 4.1 and higher, you can change the connection character set either through server configuration or by including the `charset` parameter. The `charset` parameter as received by MySQL-Python also has the side-effect of enabling `use_unicode=1`:

    # set client encoding to utf8; all strings come back as unicode
    create_engine('mysql+mysqldb:///mydb?charset=utf8')

Manually configuring `use_unicode=0` will cause MySQL-python to return encoded strings:

    # set client encoding to utf8; all strings come back as utf8 str
    create_engine('mysql+mysqldb:///mydb?charset=utf8&use_unicode=0')

### Known Issues

MySQL-python version 1.2.2 has a serious memory leak related to unicode conversion, a feature which is disabled via `use_unicode=0`. It is strongly advised to use the latest version of MySQL-Python.

## OurSQL

Support for the MySQL database via the OurSQL driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for OurSQL is available at: http://packages.python.org/oursql/

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+oursql://<user>:<password>@<host>[:<port>]/<dbname>

### Unicode

oursql defaults to using `utf8` as the connection charset, but other encodings may be used instead. Like the MySQL-Python driver, unicode support can be completely disabled:

    # oursql sets the connection charset to utf8 automatically; all strings come
    # back as utf8 str
    create_engine('mysql+oursql:///mydb?use_unicode=0')

To not automatically use `utf8` and instead use whatever the connection defaults to, there is a separate parameter:

    # use the default connection charset; all strings come back as unicode
    create_engine('mysql+oursql:///mydb?default_charset=1')

    # use latin1 as the connection charset; all strings come back as unicode
    create_engine('mysql+oursql:///mydb?charset=latin1')

## pymysql

Support for the MySQL database via the PyMySQL driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for PyMySQL is available at: http://code.google.com/p/pymysql/

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+pymysql://<username>:<password>@<host>/<dbname>[?<options>]

### MySQL-Python Compatibility

The pymysql DBAPI is a pure Python port of the MySQL-python (MySQLdb) driver, and targets 100% compatibility. Most behavioral notes for MySQL-python apply to the pymysql driver as well.

## MySQL-Connector

Support for the MySQL database via the MySQL Connector/Python driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for MySQL Connector/Python is available at: https://launchpad.net/myconnpy

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+mysqlconnector://<user>:<password>@<host>[:<port>]/<dbname>

## cymysql

Support for the MySQL database via the CyMySQL driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for CyMySQL is available at: https://github.com/nakagami/CyMySQL

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+cymysql://<username>:<password>@<host>/<dbname>[?<options>]

## Google App Engine

Support for the MySQL database via the Google Cloud SQL driver.

This dialect is based primarily on the `mysql.mysqldb` dialect with minimal changes.

New in version 0.7.8.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for Google Cloud SQL is available at: https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/cloud-sql/developers-guide

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+gaerdbms:///<dbname>?instance=<instancename>

### Pooling

Google App Engine connections appear to be randomly recycled, so the dialect does not pool connections. The `NullPool` implementation is installed within the `Engine` by default.

## pyodbc

Support for the MySQL database via the PyODBC driver.

### DBAPI

Documentation and download information (if applicable) for PyODBC is available at: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyodbc/

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+pyodbc://<username>:<password>@<dsnname>

### Limitations

The mysql-pyodbc dialect is subject to unresolved character encoding issues which exist within the current ODBC drivers available. (see http://code.google.com/p/pyodbc/issues/detail?id=25). Consider usage of OurSQL, MySQLdb, or MySQL-connector/Python.

## zxjdbc

Support for the MySQL database via the zxjdbc for Jython driver.

### DBAPI

Drivers for this database are available at: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

### Connecting

Connect String:

    mysql+zxjdbc://<user>:<password>@<hostname>[:<port>]/<database>

### Character Sets

SQLAlchemy zxjdbc dialects pass unicode straight through to the zxjdbc/JDBC layer. To allow multiple character sets to be sent from the MySQL Connector/J JDBC driver, by default SQLAlchemy sets its `characterEncoding` connection property to `UTF-8`. It may be overriden via a `create_engine` URL parameter.