MySQL 5.6 Reference Manual Including MySQL NDB Cluster 7.3-7.4 Reference Guide
mysql sends each SQL statement that you issue
to the server to be executed. There is also a set of commands
that mysql itself interprets. For a list of
these commands, type help
or
\h
at the mysql>
prompt:
mysql> help
List of all MySQL commands:
Note that all text commands must be first on line and end with ';'
? (\?) Synonym for `help'.
clear (\c) Clear the current input statement.
connect (\r) Reconnect to the server. Optional arguments are db and host.
delimiter (\d) Set statement delimiter.
edit (\e) Edit command with $EDITOR.
ego (\G) Send command to mysql server, display result vertically.
exit (\q) Exit mysql. Same as quit.
go (\g) Send command to mysql server.
help (\h) Display this help.
nopager (\n) Disable pager, print to stdout.
notee (\t) Don't write into outfile.
pager (\P) Set PAGER [to_pager]. Print the query results via PAGER.
print (\p) Print current command.
prompt (\R) Change your mysql prompt.
quit (\q) Quit mysql.
rehash (\#) Rebuild completion hash.
source (\.) Execute an SQL script file. Takes a file name as an argument.
status (\s) Get status information from the server.
system (\!) Execute a system shell command.
tee (\T) Set outfile [to_outfile]. Append everything into given
outfile.
use (\u) Use another database. Takes database name as argument.
charset (\C) Switch to another charset. Might be needed for processing
binlog with multi-byte charsets.
warnings (\W) Show warnings after every statement.
nowarning (\w) Don't show warnings after every statement.
For server side help, type 'help contents'
If mysql is invoked with the
--binary-mode
option, all
mysql commands are disabled except
charset
and delimiter
in
noninteractive mode (for input piped to mysql
or loaded using the source
command).
Each command has both a long and short form. The long form is not case-sensitive; the short form is. The long form can be followed by an optional semicolon terminator, but the short form should not.
The use of short-form commands within multiple-line /*
... */
comments is not supported.
help [
,
arg
]\h [
,
arg
]\? [
,
arg
]? [
arg
]
Display a help message listing the available mysql commands.
If you provide an argument to the help
command, mysql uses it as a search string
to access server-side help from the contents of the MySQL
Reference Manual. For more information, see
Section 4.5.1.4, “mysql Client Server-Side Help”.
charset
,
charset_name
\C
charset_name
Change the default character set and issue a
SET NAMES
statement. This
enables the character set to remain synchronized on the
client and server if mysql is run with
auto-reconnect enabled (which is not recommended), because
the specified character set is used for reconnects.
Clear the current input. Use this if you change your mind about executing the statement that you are entering.
connect [
,
db_name
[host_name
]]\r [
db_name
[host_name
]]
Reconnect to the server. The optional database name and host name arguments may be given to specify the default database or the host where the server is running. If omitted, the current values are used.
Change the string that mysql interprets
as the separator between SQL statements. The default is the
semicolon character (;
).
The delimiter string can be specified as an unquoted or
quoted argument on the delimiter
command
line. Quoting can be done with either single quote
('
), double quote ("
),
or backtick (`
) characters. To include a
quote within a quoted string, either quote the string with a
different quote character or escape the quote with a
backslash (\
) character. Backslash should
be avoided outside of quoted strings because it is the
escape character for MySQL. For an unquoted argument, the
delimiter is read up to the first space or end of line. For
a quoted argument, the delimiter is read up to the matching
quote on the line.
mysql interprets instances of the
delimiter string as a statement delimiter anywhere it
occurs, except within quoted strings. Be careful about
defining a delimiter that might occur within other words.
For example, if you define the delimiter as
X
, you cannot use the word
INDEX
in statements.
mysql interprets this as
INDE
followed by the delimiter
X
.
When the delimiter recognized by mysql is
set to something other than the default of
;
, instances of that character are sent
to the server without interpretation. However, the server
itself still interprets ;
as a statement
delimiter and processes statements accordingly. This
behavior on the server side comes into play for
multiple-statement execution (see
C API Multiple Statement Execution Support), and for parsing
the body of stored procedures and functions, triggers, and
events (see Section 20.1, “Defining Stored Programs”).
Edit the current input statement. mysql
checks the values of the EDITOR
and
VISUAL
environment variables to determine
which editor to use. The default editor is
vi if neither variable is set.
The edit
command works only in Unix.
Send the current statement to the server to be executed and display the result using vertical format.
Exit mysql.
Send the current statement to the server to be executed.
Disable output paging. See the description for
pager
.
The nopager
command works only in Unix.
Disable output copying to the tee file. See the description
for tee
.
Disable display of warnings after each statement.
Enable output paging. By using the
--pager
option when you invoke
mysql, it is possible to browse or search
query results in interactive mode with Unix programs such as
less, more, or any
other similar program. If you specify no value for the
option, mysql checks the value of the
PAGER
environment variable and sets the
pager to that. Pager functionality works only in interactive
mode.
Output paging can be enabled interactively with the
pager
command and disabled with
nopager
. The command takes an optional
argument; if given, the paging program is set to that. With
no argument, the pager is set to the pager that was set on
the command line, or stdout
if no pager
was specified.
Output paging works only in Unix because it uses the
popen()
function, which does not exist on
Windows. For Windows, the tee
option can
be used instead to save query output, although it is not as
convenient as pager
for browsing output
in some situations.
Print the current input statement without executing it.
Reconfigure the mysql prompt to the given string. The special character sequences that can be used in the prompt are described later in this section.
If you specify the prompt
command with no
argument, mysql resets the prompt to the
default of mysql>
.
Exit mysql.
Rebuild the completion hash that enables database, table,
and column name completion while you are entering
statements. (See the description for the
--auto-rehash
option.)
source
, file_name
\.
file_name
Read the named file and executes the statements contained
therein. On Windows, specify path name separators as
/
or \\
.
Quote characters are taken as part of the file name itself. For best results, the name should not include space characters.
Provide status information about the connection and the
server you are using. If you are running with
--safe-updates
enabled,
status
also prints the values for the
mysql variables that affect your queries.
Execute the given command using your default command interpreter.
The system
command works only in Unix.
tee
[
,
file_name
]\T [
file_name
]
By using the --tee
option when
you invoke mysql, you can log statements
and their output. All the data displayed on the screen is
appended into a given file. This can be very useful for
debugging purposes also. mysql flushes
results to the file after each statement, just before it
prints its next prompt. Tee functionality works only in
interactive mode.
You can enable this feature interactively with the
tee
command. Without a parameter, the
previous file is used. The tee
file can
be disabled with the notee
command.
Executing tee
again re-enables logging.
Use db_name
as the default
database.
Enable display of warnings after each statement (if there are any).
Here are a few tips about the pager
command:
You can use it to write to a file and the results go only to the file:
mysql> pager cat > /tmp/log.txt
You can also pass any options for the program that you want to use as your pager:
mysql> pager less -n -i -S
In the preceding example, note the -S
option. You may find it very useful for browsing wide query
results. Sometimes a very wide result set is difficult to
read on the screen. The -S
option to
less can make the result set much more
readable because you can scroll it horizontally using the
left-arrow and right-arrow keys. You can also use
-S
interactively within
less to switch the horizontal-browse mode
on and off. For more information, read the
less manual page:
shell> man less
The -F
and -X
options may
be used with less to cause it to exit if
output fits on one screen, which is convenient when no
scrolling is necessary:
mysql> pager less -n -i -S -F -X
You can specify very complex pager commands for handling query output:
mysql>pager cat | tee /dr1/tmp/res.txt \
| tee /dr2/tmp/res2.txt | less -n -i -S
In this example, the command would send query results to two
files in two different directories on two different file
systems mounted on /dr1
and
/dr2
, yet still display the results
onscreen using less.
You can also combine the tee
and
pager
functions. Have a
tee
file enabled and pager
set to less, and you are able to browse the
results using the less program and still have
everything appended into a file the same time. The difference
between the Unix tee
used with the
pager
command and the
mysql built-in tee
command
is that the built-in tee
works even if you do
not have the Unix tee available. The built-in
tee
also logs everything that is printed on
the screen, whereas the Unix tee used with
pager
does not log quite that much.
Additionally, tee
file logging can be turned
on and off interactively from within mysql.
This is useful when you want to log some queries to a file, but
not others.
The prompt
command reconfigures the default
mysql>
prompt. The string for defining the
prompt can contain the following special sequences.
Option | Description |
---|---|
\c |
A counter that increments for each statement you issue |
\D |
The full current date |
\d |
The default database |
\h |
The server host |
\l |
The current delimiter |
\m |
Minutes of the current time |
\n |
A newline character |
\O |
The current month in three-letter format (Jan, Feb, …) |
\o |
The current month in numeric format |
\P |
am/pm |
\p |
The current TCP/IP port or socket file |
\R |
The current time, in 24-hour military time (0–23) |
\r |
The current time, standard 12-hour time (1–12) |
\S |
Semicolon |
\s |
Seconds of the current time |
\t |
A tab character |
\U |
Your full
|
\u |
Your user name |
\v |
The server version |
\w |
The current day of the week in three-letter format (Mon, Tue, …) |
\Y |
The current year, four digits |
\y |
The current year, two digits |
\_ |
A space |
\ |
A space (a space follows the backslash) |
\' |
Single quote |
\" |
Double quote |
\\ |
A literal \ backslash character |
\ |
|
You can set the prompt in several ways:
Use an environment variable. You can
set the MYSQL_PS1
environment variable to
a prompt string. For example:
shell> export MYSQL_PS1="(\u@\h) [\d]> "
Use a command-line option. You can set
the --prompt
option on the
command line to mysql. For example:
shell> mysql --prompt="(\u@\h) [\d]> "
(user@host) [database]>
Use an option file. You can set the
prompt
option in the
[mysql]
group of any MySQL option file,
such as /etc/my.cnf
or the
.my.cnf
file in your home directory.
For example:
[mysql] prompt=(\\u@\\h) [\\d]>\\_
In this example, note that the backslashes are doubled. If
you set the prompt using the prompt
option in an option file, it is advisable to double the
backslashes when using the special prompt options. There is
some overlap in the set of permissible prompt options and
the set of special escape sequences that are recognized in
option files. (The rules for escape sequences in option
files are listed in Section 4.2.2.2, “Using Option Files”.) The
overlap may cause you problems if you use single
backslashes. For example, \s
is
interpreted as a space rather than as the current seconds
value. The following example shows how to define a prompt
within an option file to include the current time in
format:
hh:mm:ss
>
[mysql] prompt="\\r:\\m:\\s> "
Set the prompt interactively. You can
change your prompt interactively by using the
prompt
(or \R
)
command. For example:
mysql>prompt (\u@\h) [\d]>\_
PROMPT set to '(\u@\h) [\d]>\_' (user
@host
) [database
]> (user
@host
) [database
]> prompt Returning to default PROMPT of mysql> mysql>