4.2. Invoking MySQL Programs
To invoke a MySQL program from the command line (that is, from
your shell or command prompt), enter the program name followed by
any options or other arguments needed to instruct the program what
you want it to do. The following commands show some sample program
invocations. “shell>”
represents the prompt for your command interpreter; it is not part
of what you type. The particular prompt you see depends on your
command interpreter. Typical prompts are $ for
sh or bash,
% for csh or
tcsh, and C:\> for the
Windows command.com or
cmd.exe command interpreters.
shell> mysql -u root test
shell> mysqladmin extended-status variables
shell> mysqlshow --help
shell> mysqldump --user=root personnel
Arguments that begin with a single or double dash
(‘-’,
‘--’) are option arguments. Options
typically specify the type of connection a program should make to
the server or affect its operational mode. Option syntax is
described in Section 4.3, “Specifying Program Options”.
Non-option arguments (arguments with no leading dash) provide
additional information to the program. For example, the
mysql program interprets the first non-option
argument as a database name, so the command mysql -u root
test indicates that you want to use the
test database.
Later sections that describe individual programs indicate which
options a program understands and describe the meaning of any
additional non-option arguments.
Some options are common to a number of programs. The most common
of these are the --host (or -h),
--user (or -u), and
--password (or -p) options that
specify connection parameters. They indicate the host where the
MySQL server is running, and the username and password of your
MySQL account. All MySQL client programs understand these options;
they allow you to specify which server to connect to and the
account to use on that server.
You may find it necessary to invoke MySQL programs using the
pathname to the bin directory in which they
are installed. This is likely to be the case if you get a
“program not found” error whenever you attempt to run
a MySQL program from any directory other than the
bin directory. To make it more convenient to
use MySQL, you can add the pathname of the
bin directory to your PATH
environment variable setting. That enables you to run a program by
typing only its name, not its entire pathname. For example, if
mysql is installed in
/usr/local/mysql/bin, you'll be able to run
it by invoking it as mysql; it will not be
necessary to invoke it as
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql.
Consult the documentation for your command interpreter for
instructions on setting your PATH variable. The
syntax for setting environment variables is interpreter-specific.
