# New ro rails: what mysql lib comes with Ruby/RoR on windows?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 7, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599 "2006-12-07T05:22:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/builderchad)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 5:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599/1 "2006-12-07T05:22:28Z")

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Hi there, I have been happily playing with RoR on my windows machine and  
using it with Mysql. But today I tried to write a stand-alone script  
that connects to mysql to do some housekeeping and I can not get a  
connection. I tried “require ‘mysql’” first but that didn’t work so I  
searched through the Ruby dir and found a reference to DBI/DBH so going  
with an example online I tried “require ‘dbi’” but that also fails with  
"…in ‘load\_driver’: is not a class/module (TypeError).

What does RoR use to connect to mysql? Can’t I just use the same  
library?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/builderchad)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 6:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599/2 "2006-12-07T06:27:30Z")

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After you install the Ruby and MySQL you must install Ruby’s MySQL  
interface. Then you can load it in your script to connect to the  
database. To make the connection you must provide the host, username  
and password.

require ‘mysql’

db\_con = Mysql.new(“localhost”, “ruby”, “password”, “mydb”)  
result = db\_con.query(“Select \* from MyTable”)  
result.each\_hash do |r|  
print “#{r[‘column1’]}”  
end

Read the README file to see what classes are available. Check out the  
online documentation for interacting with the database.

Rails needs the MySQL driver installed on the machine. It also  
requires the connection parameters to be specified in the database.yml  
file. I don’t know if you can use the Rails framework classes for  
connecting to the database.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/builderchad)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 7:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599/3 "2006-12-07T07:23:37Z")

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Rails Recipe book has a recipe “Use Active Record Outside of Rails”  
For simple scripts you can use the ActiveRecord::Base class to  
establish a database connection, then you just make your class extend  
from it. Now all the methods of the ActiveRecord is available to you.  
Refer the online documentation of Rails for the syntax and usage.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@builderchad](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/builderchad)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-ro-rails-what-mysql-lib-comes-with-ruby-ror-on-windows/78599/4 "2006-12-07T16:13:52Z")

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Thanks guys, I just assumed that if RoR was installed and working with  
mysql already I could just load up the lib and play. I don’t want to  
use ActiveRecord as these are just housekeeping scripts and I need them  
to be as fast as possible.