If you do a lot of Perl programming but are not familiar with Python, you should definitely take a look at it. Python is an object-oriented scripting language that combines the strengths of languages such as Perl and Tcl with a clear syntax that lends itself to applications that are easy to maintain and extend. Learning Python ,by Mark Lutz and David Asher (O’Reilly), provides an excellent introduction to Python programming. This chapter assumes you have a working understanding of the Python language.

To follow the content of this chapter, you will need to download and install MySQLdb, the MySQL version of DB-API. You can find the module at http://dustman.net/andy/python/MySQLdb. Chapter 20 includes directions on how to install MySQLdb.