Enabling support for DB2 and Python/Django/SQLAlchemy on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

This article is obsolete. Please refer to the following articles for up do date instructions: Ruby/Rails and DB2 | Python/Django and DB2. Thank you!

This is the Python version of a post I made about Ruby a few days ago.

Now that Mac OS X 10.6 is out, it’s time to leave the world of 32 bit computing behind. The pre-installed Python interpreter will run in 64 bit mode by default, so you may need to pay attention when installing some C-based eggs.

Assuming you have DB2 Express-C installed already, the ibm_db Python egg for DB2 can easily be installed by following these simple steps:

$ sudo -s
$ export IBM_DB_LIB=/Users/<username>/sqllib/lib64
$ export IBM_DB_DIR=/Users/<username>/sqllib
$ export ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64"
$ easy_install ibm_db

This will install the ibm_db C driver, and the ibm_db_dbi Python module that complies to the DB-API 2.0 specification.

You can verify that the installation was successful my running the following:

$ python
>>> import ibm_db
>>>

Now, for the Django adapter, install Django first (if you haven’t done so already):

$ sudo easy_install django

The Django adapter can then be installed as follows:

$ sudo easy_install ibm_db_django

Finally, if have installed SQLAlchemy and wish to install the DB2 adapter for it, run:

$ sudo easy_install ibm_db_sa

Please let me know if you encounter any issues, I’d be glad to help you.