Mysql2 - A modern, simple and very fast Mysql library for Ruby - binding to libmysql

The Mysql2 gem is meant to serve the extremely common use-case of connecting, querying and iterating on results. Some database libraries out there serve as direct 1:1 mappings of the already complex C API’s available. This one is not.

It also forces the use of UTF-8 [or binary] for the connection [and all strings in 1.9] and uses encoding-aware MySQL API calls where it can.

The API consists of two clases:

Mysql2::Client - your connection to the database

Mysql2::Result - returned from issuing a #query on the connection. It includes Enumerable.

Installing

gem install mysql2

You may have to specify –with-mysql-config=/some/random/path/bin/mysql_config

Usage

Connect to a database:

# this takes a hash of options, almost all of which map directly
# to the familiar database.yml in rails
# See http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/ConnectionAdapters/MysqlAdapter.html
client = Mysql2::Client.new(:host => "localhost", :username => "root")

Then query it:

results = client.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE group='githubbers'")

Need to escape something first?

escaped = client.escape("gi'thu\"bbe\0r's")
results = client.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE group='#{escaped}'")

Finally, iterate over the results:

results.each do |row|
  # conveniently, row is a hash
  # the keys are the fields, as you'd expect
  # the values are pre-built ruby primitives mapped from their corresponding field types in MySQL
  # Here's an otter: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/130/398077070_b8795d0ef3_b.jpg
end

Or, you might just keep it simple:

client.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE group='githubbers'").each do |row|
  # do something with row, it's ready to rock
end

How about with symbolized keys?

# NOTE: the :symbolize_keys and future options will likely move to the #query method soon
client.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE group='githubbers'").each(:symbolize_keys => true) do |row|
  # do something with row, it's ready to rock
end

Async

Mysql2::Client takes advantage of the MySQL C API’s (undocumented) non-blocking function mysql_send_query for all queries. But, in order to take full advantage of it in your Ruby code, you can do:

client.query("SELECT sleep(5)", :async => true)

Which will return nil immediately. At this point you’ll probably want to use some socket monitoring mechanism like EventMachine or even IO.select. Once the socket becomes readable, you can do:

# result will be a Mysql2::Result instance
result = client.async_result

NOTE: Because of the way MySQL’s query API works, this method will block until the result is ready. So if you really need things to stay async, it’s best to just monitor the socket with something like EventMachine. If you need multiple query concurrency take a look at using a connection pool.

ActiveRecord

To use the ActiveRecord driver, all you should need to do is have this gem installed and set the adapter in your database.yml to “mysql2”. That was easy right? :)

EventMachine

The mysql2 EventMachine deferrable api allows you to make async queries using EventMachine, while specifying callbacks for success for failure. Here’s a simple example:

require 'mysql2/em'

EM.run do
  client1 = Mysql2::EM::Client.new
  defer1 = client1.query "SELECT sleep(3) as first_query"
  defer1.callback do |result|
    puts "Result: #{result.to_a.inspect}"
  end

  client2 = Mysql2::EM::Client.new
  defer2 = client2.query "SELECT sleep(1) second_query"
  defer2.callback do |result|
    puts "Result: #{result.to_a.inspect}"
  end
end

Compatibility

The specs pass on my system (SL 10.6.3, x86_64) in these rubies:

1.8.7-p249
ree-1.8.7-2010.01
1.9.1-p378
ruby-trunk
rbx-head

The ActiveRecord driver should work on 2.3.5 and 3.0

Yeah… but why?

Someone: Dude, the Mysql gem works fiiiiiine.

Me: It sure does, but it only hands you nil and strings for field values. Leaving you to convert them into proper Ruby types in Ruby-land - which is slow as balls.

Someone: OK fine, but do_mysql can already give me back values with Ruby objects mapped to MySQL types.

Me: Yep, but it’s API is considerably more complex and is 2-3x slower.

Benchmarks

Performing a basic “SELECT * FROM” query on a table with 30k rows and fields of nearly every Ruby-representable data type, then iterating over every row using an #each like method yielding a block:

# And remember, the Mysql gem only gives back nil and strings.
 user       system     total     real
Mysql2
 2.080000   0.790000   2.870000 (  3.418861)
Mysql
 1.210000   0.790000   2.000000 (  4.527824)
do_mysql
 5.450000   0.980000   6.430000 (  7.001563)