Can not install apache-airflow-providers-mysql or mysqlclient: pkg-config error on MacOS

Question

Using MacOS Ventura 13.6, when trying to install apache-airflow-providers-mysql or mysqlclient package I get the following error:

$ pip install apache-airflow-providers-mysql
...
Collecting mysqlclient>=1.3.6 (from apache-airflow-providers-mysql)
  Using cached mysqlclient-2.2.0.tar.gz (89 kB)
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [27 lines of output]
      /bin/sh: pkg-config: command not found
      /bin/sh: pkg-config: command not found
      Trying pkg-config --exists mysqlclient
      Command 'pkg-config --exists mysqlclient' returned non-zero exit status 127.
      Trying pkg-config --exists mariadb
      Command 'pkg-config --exists mariadb' returned non-zero exit status 127.
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "/Users/am/test-env-mysqlclient/lib/python3.11/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 353, in <module>
          main()
        File "/Users/am/test-env-mysqlclient/lib/python3.11/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 335, in main
          json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "/Users/am/test-env-mysqlclient/lib/python3.11/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 118, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          return hook(config_settings)
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "/private/var/folders/dl/dl02sf7d0kxd127bfd69h0d1pdpc0b/T/pip-build-env-33qoucsr/overlay/lib/python3.11/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 355, in get_requires_for_build_wheel
          return self._get_build_requires(config_settings, requirements=['wheel'])
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        File "/private/var/folders/dl/dl02sf7d0kxd127bfd69h0d1pdpc0b/T/pip-build-env-33qoucsr/overlay/lib/python3.11/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 325, in _get_build_requires
          self.run_setup()
        File "/private/var/folders/dl/dl02sf7d0kxd127bfd69h0d1pdpc0b/T/pip-build-env-33qoucsr/overlay/lib/python3.11/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 341, in run_setup
          exec(code, locals())
        File "<string>", line 154, in <module>
        File "<string>", line 48, in get_config_posix
        File "<string>", line 27, in find_package_name
      Exception: Can not find valid pkg-config name.
      Specify MYSQLCLIENT_CFLAGS and MYSQLCLIENT_LDFLAGS env vars manually
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> See above for output.

How do I install pkg-config and the necessary dependencies to build mysqlclient?

Answer 1

mysqlclient (required by apache-airflow-providers-mysql) needs to be built using a C compiler which also requires a number of build tools including pkg-config

On MacOS, the simplest way to achieve this is by using Homebrew to install the required dependencies.

1. Install Homebrew. See https://brew.sh/
2. Install MySQL and pkg-config: brew install mysql pkg-config

Now re-run your pip install command. E.g.

pip install mysqlclient