WampServer, client header and library files - r

Question

WampServer is installed on my computer.
I am wishing to install the RMySQL package.
The online documentation of the latter mentions:
Install a MySQL client library from http://www.mysql.com or http://dev.mysql.com. If you already installed a MySQL server, you may want to re-run the install to ensure that you also installed client header and library files. Note that Xampp doesn't include these.
I am confused I don't know which are these required 'header' and 'library' files. And, how do I know whether they are made available by WampServer? If it is not the case, can I simply add them somewhere to a WampServer folder (instead of uninstalling WampServer and installing Apache and its friends separatedly)?
Thanks,
Édouard

Answer 1

OK so I've just gone through the living hell that is installing RMySQL on Windows. But finally succeeded.
Binaries on windows are not supported, so the other answers saying this is "Simple" are wrong. Also a lot of the guides etc out there are outdated, or have broken links.
The best overall answer for MYSQL generally is to look at:
Using MySQL in R for Windows
Basically you have to install RTools in order to be able to compile the packages from source.
However specifically with WAMPServer, it doesn't install the .lib and client files. So what I did was go to MYSQL to find the exact same version of MYSQL as Wampserver had installed. I downloaded the zip file version. I compared the lib directories with a visual difference tool (Beyond Compare) and copied across the missing files into my WAMPServer MYSQL installation.
As per the guide above, I then copied:
libmysql.lib from mysql/lib to mysql/lib/opt to meet dependencies.
libmysql.dll to C:\Program Files\R\R-2.12.1\bin
Finally install.packages('RMySQL',type='source') worked

Answer 2

For people using WampServer in Windows and wanting to install RMySQL, I've adapted the instructions outlined here. I'm assuming you already have WampServer installed. I'll also use the file paths that I used on my computer, but keep in mind that your file paths may differ slightly (due to different versions, installations, etc.)
Install latest RTools from here.
Create a new file called Renviron.site in C:\Program Files\R\R-2.15.1\etc\, open the file in a text editor, and add a line like MYSQL_HOME="C:/wamp/bin/mysql/mysql5.6.12" (path to your mysql files). Make sure to use forward slashes and don't forget the quotes.
Click on your WampServer icon and go to MySQL, then Version. This will tell you what version of MySQL was included in your WampServer distribution.
Go to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql and download and install the same version of MySQL that is included in your WampServer distribution.
Once you've gone through the complete installation, go to the folder where MySQL installed and copy the file called libmysql.lib, which can be found in the lib\ folder.
Now go to the lib\ folder in your WampServer directory (mine is C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.12\lib) and create a new folder called opt\.
Paste into this new opt folder the libmysql.lib file that you just copied.
You can now uninstall the MySQL server that you just downloaded, since we only needed that one file from it (which is apparently not included in the WampServer distribution).
Under C:\wamp\bin\mysql\mysql5.6.12\lib\, you'll also find libmysql.dll. Copy this to C:\Program Files\R\R-2.15.1\bin\i386\ (This works if you have 36 bit Windows like me. I think if you have 64 bit, you may just put it under the bin\ subdirectory instead of under bin\i386\, but please don't hold me to that.) I also copied the same file (libmysql.dll) to the C:\windows\system32\ directory, but I'm not sure if this is necessary.
In R, run install.packages('RMySQL',type='source') and hopefully the installation completes without any issues. You can then load the package as usual with library(RMySQL).
Note: I'm running 32 bit Windows, R-2.15.1, and a WampServer distribution that includes MySQL 5.6.12.