How can I use a compressed connection between Django and MySQL? - mysql

Question

I have compression on my MySQL server, and I'd like to ensure Django is making compressed connections. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Trial, error and inference suggest the solution is to use a compress field set to True in the OPTIONS dict:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
...
'OPTIONS': {
'compress': True
}
}
}
I can't confirm the connection is actually compressed though.

Answer 2

A cursory (no pun intended) examinations of /django/db/backends/mysql/base.py of Django 1.3:
298 def _cursor(self):
299 if not self._valid_connection():
300 kwargs = {
301 'conv': django_conversions,
302 'charset': 'utf8',
303 'use_unicode': True,
304 }
305 settings_dict = self.settings_dict
306 if settings_dict['USER']:
307 kwargs['user'] = settings_dict['USER']
308 if settings_dict['NAME']:
309 kwargs['db'] = settings_dict['NAME']
310 if settings_dict['PASSWORD']:
311 kwargs['passwd'] = settings_dict['PASSWORD']
312 if settings_dict['HOST'].startswith('/'):
313 kwargs['unix_socket'] = settings_dict['HOST']
314 elif settings_dict['HOST']:
315 kwargs['host'] = settings_dict['HOST']
316 if settings_dict['PORT']:
317 kwargs['port'] = int(settings_dict['PORT'])
318 # We need the number of potentially affected rows after an
319 # "UPDATE", not the number of changed rows.
320 kwargs['client_flag'] = CLIENT.FOUND_ROWS
321 kwargs.update(settings_dict['OPTIONS'])
322 self.connection = Database.connect(**kwargs)
323 self.connection.encoders[SafeUnicode] = self.connection.encoders[unicode]
324 self.connection.encoders[SafeString] = self.connection.encoders[str]
325 connection_created.send(sender=self.__class__, connection=self)
326 cursor = CursorWrapper(self.connection.cursor())
327 return cursor
When creating a connection on line 322, the code does not seem to pass the compress argument in kwargs, not by default anyway.
Passing 'compress': True through OPTIONS should let you create a compressed connection when it's available, this dictionary is merged to kwargs on line 321.
There does not seem to be any other calls to the MySQLdb.connect() method in the rest of the backend. Note that MySQLdb is imported as: import MySQLdb as Database in that file.