# Rails talking to MySql (cygwin on Windows XP) **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 13, 2006, 1:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687 "2006-04-13T01:38:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/1 "2006-04-13T01:38:36Z")
Hello fellow RoR users, I am a newbie and I thought RoR is so easy to set up and that I would be saving so much time – but I am still waiting to save time because I simply couldn’t get Ruby/Rails to talk to MySQL (5.0.18) at all. Here are the steps that I have examined: 1. I look at dabatbase.yml and put in the right information to talk to the database I have set up (the information is correct because I have used MySQL-front and MySQL administrator to talk to it). I ensure there was no weird characters in the file. 2. In the out-of-box database.yml, it says “On Windows: There is no gem for Windows. Install mysql.so from RubyForApache.” A supposedly popular framework that doesn’t support the popular Windows+MySQL setup – fine, even though the often touted “convention over configuration” ease-of-use fails to apply here, I am technical enough, so I go deep. I got the mysql.so. Because I have ruby installed with cygwin, the default place is C:\cygwin\lib\ruby (There was a bug in RubyForApache that even if you choose the right folder for your ruby installation, it still appends extra paths as if it still assume the default Ruby installation directory is C:\ruby – fine, I can live with the often touted user-friendliness here). So I set it up to have mysql.so copied to C:\cygwin\lib\ruby\site\_ruby\1.8\i386-msvcrt. So now, what do we do? Because I assume the often-touted the RoR community writes documentation better and appreciate good documentation than the other frameworks, I assume I don’t have to do anything more. 1. So I try: ruby script/generate and the following error (a snippet without the rest of the trace) comes up: /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.0/lib/active\_record/connection\_ada pters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:194:in `establish\_connection’:ActiveR ecord::AdapterNotSpecified: adapter:mysql database:test username:root password:admin host:localhost database is not configured 1. OK, so I search on combinations of keywords here. Nothing turns up. OK, so I am on my own. Many posts related to “MySQL, Windows” sugguests that one “gem install mysql” because it would be faster anyway. But that requires one to download the right MySQL headers and library and compile the whole thing yourself. Without knowing whether it would really solve the problem, I paused and search for more answers on-line. (Actually, I lied: I did try to download the source from MySQL nightly-build for Windows: the thing is, the downloaded tree, for one thing, has only “include” but no the so-claimed-necessary “lib” – that was a bad sign, and even now with different options for gem install mysql --with-…," nothing helped. Since I haven’t compiled MySQL myself on Windows or at all, I am no expert, so I am going no further.) 2. I’ve found no answers and I found you here… If you would know how I can troublshoot what’s happening here, I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I really don’t know how a supposedly developer-friendly framework can be taking 10x time to set up and deploy (that would negate any so-claimed “10x” saving in the actual coding process, wouldn’t it? Because if one can’t even set it up to test and evalute RoR easily, how is it that one would feel so comfortable and confident in its scalability and robustness?) Go Ruby/RoR. I hope there is an easy answer for this popular Windows+MySQL+CygWin environment. I am holding my faith for “convention over configuration” delicately right now. 😉 Thanks much! Philip ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/2 "2006-04-13T01:41:33Z")
try host: 127.0.0.1 in your database.yml file ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/3 "2006-04-13T01:45:59Z")
Todd F. wrote: > try > host: 127.0.0.1 > in your database.yml file Forgot to say, I tried that before already. Same error: Loading development environment. /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.0/lib/active\_record/connection\_ada pters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:194:in `establish\_connection’:ActiveR ecord::AdapterNotSpecified: adapter:mysql database:test username:root password:admin host:127.0.0.1 database is not configured The other thing I tried was to get the other mysql.so (version 5.0.15) (mentioned inhttp://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseMySQLRubyBindingsOnWin32). This didn’t help, either. ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/4 "2006-04-13T01:57:52Z")
OK, something indeed is intuitive here (yes, newbie I am). Todd – you were right, with a " " between “host:” and the “127.0.0.1,” the problem finally goes away, yeh!!! Now I can resume my evaluation! But whoever wrote the design for database.yml – you are not Agile or “Convention over Configuration” or whatever good-adjectives that Ruby or RoR is getting in the press these days. If it separates on “:”, why a space between key and value matters? If the space between key and value matters because that is the separation token, why the “:”? Intuitive, eh? Very bad sign. OK, Ruby/RoR is still a baby, I will forgive the time it has taken me so far to configure this thing. (I am coming from Java world and trying to see how far I can take RoR to match what is there on Java already.) Thanks, Todd! Philip wrote: > Todd F. wrote: > > > try > > host: 127.0.0.1 > > in your database.yml file > > Forgot to say, I tried that before already. Same error: > > Loading development environment. > /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.0/lib/active\_record/connection\_ada > pters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:194:in > `establish\_connection’:ActiveR > ecord::AdapterNotSpecified: adapter:mysql database:test username:root > password:admin host:127.0.0.1 database is not configured > > The other thing I tried was to get the other mysql.so (version 5.0.15) > (mentioned > inhttp://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseMySQLRubyBindingsOnWin32). > This didn’t help, either. ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 8:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/5 "2006-04-13T08:23:04Z")
On 13/04/06, Philip [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > to see how far I can take RoR to match what is there on Java already.) > I have to admit this one is quite a trick, especially that you didnt > choose the easiest path to try out RoR, Instant Rails would have save > you some time I guess. but here’s one for you: Try to miss one of the “\>” in one of the Java XML configuration files, or even worse a quote around an attribute, and you in for a nice treasure hunt trying to figure out what on earth is going wrong… I once did this in one of JBoss config files and there was no way I could figure out what was wrong from Java error messages, it’s only when I reinstalled from scratch and did a file compare that I could see it. Nobody’s perfect… Gael ---
**Author:** ![philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@philip](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rails-talking-to-mysql-cygwin-on-windows-xp/57687/6 "2006-04-13T13:21:57Z")
On 4/13/06, Gael P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > so far to configure this thing. (I am coming from Java world and trying > > I once did this in one of JBoss config files and there was no way I > > could figure out what was wrong from Java error messages, it’s only > > when I reinstalled from scratch and did a file compare that I could > > see it. > > Nobody’s perfect… > > Gael Really, the easiest way to start on Windows is with Instant Rails (you can always build your own system later): [http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/](http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/) Curt