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MySQL database from Ruby - an example

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2008-11-16 16:21:07 - Graham Ellis

Both MySQL and Ruby are huge subjects - the former being an excellent database engine and the latter a superb programming language. Yet although each individually is a huge subject, linking the two (i.e. accessing data stored in a MySQL database via a Ruby program) is so each that it's almost trivial.

Here's one way of doing it - my "Hello MySQL in Ruby" if you like.

1. Download the Ruby/MySQL module from http://www.tmtm.org/en/ruby/mysql/

2. Add the following lines (or equivalent) into your code:

require "mysql"
myconnect = Mysql::new("192.168.200.67", "trainee", "abc123", "forsale")
 
res = myconnect.query("select * from agents")
res.each do |row|

3. Enjoy!

The code loads in the module that you've downloaded (require), connects to the database engine and database (Mysql::new), runs the query (the query method on the connection object) and iterates through the result set.

The full source code of this example is here, and we cover the topic on our Ruby Programming course.