def generate_db_url(user, password, host, db_name, protocol = "mysql+pymysql"):
    """
    Utility function for generating database URL
    This function generates a database URL with the mysql and pymysql protocol for use with pandas.read_sql()
    Parameters
    ----------
    user : str
        The username for the database
    password : str
        The password for the database
    host : str
        The host address for the database server
    db_name : str
        The name of the database
    protocol : str
        The protocol to be used. Defaults to "mysql+pymysql".
    
    Returns
    -------
    str
        URL in this format:  protocol://user:password@host/db_name
    """
    return f"{protocol}://{user}:{password}@{host}/{db_name}"