> planetthoughtful wrote:
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I'm just starting out learning Ruby, having come from a PHP background.
>>
>> I've downloaded the latest stable Ruby release, and have also used the
>> GEM package manager to install Rails, but I'm a little confused about
>> how I connect Ruby to MySQL?
>>
>> The only references I can find to a Ruby driver for MySQL call for
>> compiling, and I (and many other WinXP users, I imagine) don't have a
>> copy of Visual C++ with which to do that.
>>
>> Is there no official supported driver for connecting Ruby to MySQL
>> under Windows?


You're right there's no "official supported driver".

James Britt offered:
> There is a pure-Ruby MySQL driver.
> http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-mysql/
> might be it.

That is indeed the pure-Ruby MySQL driver. I think I've heard it doesn't 
work with MySQL 5.

There are two other ways to connect to MySQL. One is to use the MySQL ODBC 
driver (available from mysql.com) along with Ruby-DBI.

Another involves compiling MySQL, or at least finding a pre-compiled binary 
that works with your version of MySQL. I don't know why they're so hard to 
find at the moment. But at least you don't need to fork out for Visual 
Studio to compile it: check out the following page for info on the tools you 
need and how it's only half a gig of downloading:
http://rubygarden.com/ruby/ruby?WindowsCompiler

The Instant Rails project is currently using the pure-Ruby driver, but watch 
for when they move to a binary, potentially with MySQL 5. (And MySQL 5 seems 
to be a real DBMS.)

Other options (ones that I prefer over MySQL at the moment) are:
* MS SQL Server (limited storage and memory Express Edition available free 
here:
  http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/trial-software.mspx#EEAA)
* SQLite (columns are untyped; available from http://sqlite.org)

Please report back when successful, to help others like yourself.

Cheers,
Dave