mysqldump from within python script but command not found

Question

I need to execute mysqldump from within a django function. I can do so easily enough from the terminal command line, but when I try to run it from within the python script, I get an error:

sh: mysqldump: command not found 

when running the following.

filestamp = date.today()
dumpcmd = "mysqldump -u root appdb > appdb%s.out" % (filestamp)
os.system(dumpcmd)

I think the problem has something to do with the Path in either the django application or Eclipse, but I can't figure out why mysqldump can't be found from within the django app but it can be from the command line / virtualenv

Answer 1

make sure mysqldump is in your path

$ whereis mysqldump; echo $PATH
mysqldump: /usr/bin/mysqldump /usr/share/man/man1/mysqldump.1.gz
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

and/or

using mysqldump and mysql inside python

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen('mysqldump -h localhost -P 3306 -u -root appdb > appdb.sql', shell=True)

Or use the full path in the Python statement. eg /usr/bin/mysqldump