8.5. mysql — The MySQL Command-Line Tool
mysql is a simple SQL shell (with GNU
readline capabilities). It supports
interactive and non-interactive use. When used interactively,
query results are presented in an ASCII-table format. When
used non-interactively (for example, as a filter), the result
is presented in tab-separated format. The output format can be
changed using command options.
If you have problems due to insufficient memory for large
result sets, use the --quick option. This
forces mysql to retrieve results from the
server a row at a time rather than retrieving the entire
result set and buffering it in memory before displaying it.
This is done by returning the result set using the
mysql_use_result() C API function in the
client/server library rather than
mysql_store_result().
Using mysql is very easy. Invoke it from
the prompt of your command interpreter as follows:
shell> mysql db_name
Or:
shell> mysql --user=user_name --password=your_password db_name
Then type an SQL statement, end it with
‘;’, \g, or
\G and press Enter.
You can execute SQL statements in a script file (batch file)
like this:
shell> mysql db_name < script.sql > output.tab
