--help, -?

Display a help message and exit.

--auto-rehash

Enable automatic rehashing. This option is on by default, which enables database, table, and column name completion. Use --disable-auto-rehash to disable rehashing. That causes mysql to start faster, but you must issue the rehash command or its \# shortcut if you want to use name completion.

To complete a name, enter the first part and press Tab. If the name is unambiguous, mysql completes it. Otherwise, you can press Tab again to see the possible names that begin with what you have typed so far. Completion does not occur if there is no default database.

--auto-vertical-output

Cause result sets to be displayed vertically if they are too wide for the current window, and using normal tabular format otherwise. (This applies to statements terminated by ; or \G.)

--batch, -B

Print results using tab as the column separator, with each row on a new line. With this option, mysql does not use the history file.

Batch mode results in nontabular output format and escaping of special characters. Escaping may be disabled by using raw mode; see the description for the --raw option.

--binary-as-hex

When this option is given, mysql displays binary data using hexadecimal notation (0xvalue). This occurs whether the overall output display format is tabular, vertical, HTML, or XML.

--binary-as-hex when enabled affects display of all binary strings, including those returned by functions such as CHAR() and UNHEX(). The following example demonistrates this using the ASCII code for A (65 decimal, 41 hexadecimal):

To write a binary string expression so that it displays as a character string regardless of whether --binary-as-hex is enabled, use these techniques:

This option was added in MySQL 5.7.19.

--binary-mode

This option helps when processing mysqlbinlog output that may contain BLOB values. By default, mysql translates \r\n in statement strings to \n and interprets \0 as the statement terminator. --binary-mode disables both features. It also disables all mysql commands except charset and delimiter in noninteractive mode (for input piped to mysql or loaded using the source command).

--bind-address=ip_address

On a computer having multiple network interfaces, use this option to select which interface to use for connecting to the MySQL server.

--character-sets-dir=dir_name

The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 10.15, “Character Set Configuration”.

--column-names

Write column names in results.

--column-type-info

Display result set metadata. This information corresponds to the contents of C API MYSQL_FIELD data structures. See C API Basic Data Structures.

--comments, -c

Whether to strip or preserve comments in statements sent to the server. The default is --skip-comments (strip comments), enable with --comments (preserve comments).

--compress, -C

Compress all information sent between the client and the server if possible. See Section 4.2.6, “Connection Compression Control”.

--connect-expired-password

Indicate to the server that the client can handle sandbox mode if the account used to connect has an expired password. This can be useful for noninteractive invocations of mysql because normally the server disconnects noninteractive clients that attempt to connect using an account with an expired password. (See Section 6.2.12, “Server Handling of Expired Passwords”.)

--connect-timeout=value

The number of seconds before connection timeout. (Default value is 0.)

--database=db_name, -D db_name

The database to use. This is useful primarily in an option file.

--debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options]

Write a debugging log. A typical debug_options string is d:t:o,file_name. The default is d:t:o,/tmp/mysql.trace.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

--debug-check

Print some debugging information when the program exits.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

--debug-info, -T

Print debugging information and memory and CPU usage statistics when the program exits.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

--default-auth=plugin

A hint about which client-side authentication plugin to use. See Section 6.2.13, “Pluggable Authentication”.

--default-character-set=charset_name

Use charset_name as the default character set for the client and connection.

This option can be useful if the operating system uses one character set and the mysql client by default uses another. In this case, output may be formatted incorrectly. You can usually fix such issues by using this option to force the client to use the system character set instead.

For more information, see Section 10.4, “Connection Character Sets and Collations”, and Section 10.15, “Character Set Configuration”.

--defaults-extra-file=file_name

Read this option file after the global option file but (on Unix) before the user option file. If the file does not exist or is otherwise inaccessible, an error occurs. If file_name is not an absolute path name, it is interpreted relative to the current directory.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--defaults-file=file_name

Use only the given option file. If the file does not exist or is otherwise inaccessible, an error occurs. If file_name is not an absolute path name, it is interpreted relative to the current directory.

Exception: Even with --defaults-file, client programs read .mylogin.cnf.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--defaults-group-suffix=str

Read not only the usual option groups, but also groups with the usual names and a suffix of str. For example, mysql normally reads the [client] and [mysql] groups. If this option is given as --defaults-group-suffix=_other, mysql also reads the [client_other] and [mysql_other] groups.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--delimiter=str

Set the statement delimiter. The default is the semicolon character (;).

--disable-named-commands

Disable named commands. Use the \* form only, or use named commands only at the beginning of a line ending with a semicolon (;). mysql starts with this option enabled by default. However, even with this option, long-format commands still work from the first line. See Section 4.5.1.2, “mysql Client Commands”.

--enable-cleartext-plugin

Enable the mysql_clear_password cleartext authentication plugin. (See Section 6.4.1.6, “Client-Side Cleartext Pluggable Authentication”.)

--execute=statement, -e statement

Execute the statement and quit. The default output format is like that produced with --batch. See Section 4.2.2.1, “Using Options on the Command Line”, for some examples. With this option, mysql does not use the history file.

--force, -f

Continue even if an SQL error occurs.

--get-server-public-key

Request from the server the public key required for RSA key pair-based password exchange. This option applies to clients that authenticate with the caching_sha2_password authentication plugin. For that plugin, the server does not send the public key unless requested. This option is ignored for accounts that do not authenticate with that plugin. It is also ignored if RSA-based password exchange is not used, as is the case when the client connects to the server using a secure connection.

If --server-public-key-path=file_name is given and specifies a valid public key file, it takes precedence over --get-server-public-key.

For information about the caching_sha2_password plugin, see Section 6.4.1.4, “Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication”.

The --get-server-public-key option was added in MySQL 5.7.23.

--histignore

A list of one or more colon-separated patterns specifying statements to ignore for logging purposes. These patterns are added to the default pattern list ("*IDENTIFIED*:*PASSWORD*"). The value specified for this option affects logging of statements written to the history file, and to syslog if the --syslog option is given. For more information, see Section 4.5.1.3, “mysql Client Logging”.

--host=host_name, -h host_name

Connect to the MySQL server on the given host.

--html, -H

Produce HTML output.

--ignore-spaces, -i

Ignore spaces after function names. The effect of this is described in the discussion for the IGNORE_SPACE SQL mode (see Section 5.1.10, “Server SQL Modes”).

--init-command=str

SQL statement to execute after connecting to the server. If auto-reconnect is enabled, the statement is executed again after reconnection occurs.

--line-numbers

Write line numbers for errors. Disable this with --skip-line-numbers.

--local-infile[={0|1}]

By default, LOCAL capability for LOAD DATA is determined by the default compiled into the MySQL client library. To enable or disable LOCAL data loading explicitly, use the --local-infile option. When given with no value, the option enables LOCAL data loading. When given as --local-infile=0 or --local-infile=1, the option disables or enables LOCAL data loading.

Successful use of LOCAL load operations within mysql also requires that the server permits local loading; see Section 6.1.6, “Security Considerations for LOAD DATA LOCAL”

--login-path=name

Read options from the named login path in the .mylogin.cnf login path file. A “login path” is an option group containing options that specify which MySQL server to connect to and which account to authenticate as. To create or modify a login path file, use the mysql_config_editor utility. See Section 4.6.6, “mysql_config_editor — MySQL Configuration Utility”.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--max-allowed-packet=value

The maximum size of the buffer for client/server communication. The default is 16MB, the maximum is 1GB.

--max-join-size=value

The automatic limit for rows in a join when using --safe-updates. (Default value is 1,000,000.)

--named-commands, -G

Enable named mysql commands. Long-format commands are permitted, not just short-format commands. For example, quit and \q both are recognized. Use --skip-named-commands to disable named commands. See Section 4.5.1.2, “mysql Client Commands”.

--net-buffer-length=value

The buffer size for TCP/IP and socket communication. (Default value is 16KB.)

--no-auto-rehash, -A

This has the same effect as --skip-auto-rehash. See the description for --auto-rehash.

--no-beep, -b

Do not beep when errors occur.

--no-defaults

Do not read any option files. If program startup fails due to reading unknown options from an option file, --no-defaults can be used to prevent them from being read.

The exception is that the .mylogin.cnf file is read in all cases, if it exists. This permits passwords to be specified in a safer way than on the command line even when --no-defaults is used. To create .mylogin.cnf, use the mysql_config_editor utility. See Section 4.6.6, “mysql_config_editor — MySQL Configuration Utility”.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--one-database, -o

Ignore statements except those that occur while the default database is the one named on the command line. This option is rudimentary and should be used with care. Statement filtering is based only on USE statements.

Initially, mysql executes statements in the input because specifying a database db_name on the command line is equivalent to inserting USE db_name at the beginning of the input. Then, for each USE statement encountered, mysql accepts or rejects following statements depending on whether the database named is the one on the command line. The content of the statements is immaterial.

Suppose that mysql is invoked to process this set of statements:

DELETE FROM db2.t2;
USE db2;
DROP TABLE db1.t1;
CREATE TABLE db1.t1 (i INT);
USE db1;
INSERT INTO t1 (i) VALUES(1);
CREATE TABLE db2.t1 (j INT);

If the command line is mysql --force --one-database db1, mysql handles the input as follows:

--pager[=command]

Use the given command for paging query output. If the command is omitted, the default pager is the value of your PAGER environment variable. Valid pagers are less, more, cat [> filename], and so forth. This option works only on Unix and only in interactive mode. To disable paging, use --skip-pager. Section 4.5.1.2, “mysql Client Commands”, discusses output paging further.

--password[=password], -p[password]

The password of the MySQL account used for connecting to the server. The password value is optional. If not given, mysql prompts for one. If given, there must be no space between --password= or -p and the password following it. If no password option is specified, the default is to send no password.

Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. To avoid giving the password on the command line, use an option file. See Section 6.1.2.1, “End-User Guidelines for Password Security”.

To explicitly specify that there is no password and that mysql should not prompt for one, use the --skip-password option.

--pipe, -W

On Windows, connect to the server using a named pipe. This option applies only if the server was started with the named_pipe system variable enabled to support named-pipe connections. In addition, the user making the connection must be a member of the Windows group specified by the named_pipe_full_access_group system variable.

--plugin-dir=dir_name

The directory in which to look for plugins. Specify this option if the --default-auth option is used to specify an authentication plugin but mysql does not find it. See Section 6.2.13, “Pluggable Authentication”.

--port=port_num, -P port_num

For TCP/IP connections, the port number to use.

--print-defaults

Print the program name and all options that it gets from option files.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 4.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

--prompt=format_str

Set the prompt to the specified format. The default is mysql>. The special sequences that the prompt can contain are described in Section 4.5.1.2, “mysql Client Commands”.

--protocol={TCP|SOCKET|PIPE|MEMORY}

The transport protocol to use for connecting to the server. It is useful when the other connection parameters normally result in use of a protocol other than the one you want. For details on the permissible values, see Section 4.2.5, “Connection Transport Protocols”.

--quick, -q

Do not cache each query result, print each row as it is received. This may slow down the server if the output is suspended. With this option, mysql does not use the history file.

By default, mysql fetches all result rows before producing any output; while storing these, it calculates a running maximum column length from the actual value of each column in succession. When printing the output, it uses this maximum to format it. When --quick is specified, mysql does not have the rows for which to calculate the length before starting, and so uses the maximum length. In the following example, table t1 has a single column of type BIGINT and containing 4 rows. The default output is 9 characters wide; this width is equal the maximum number of characters in any of the column values in the rows returned (5), plus 2 characters each for the spaces used as padding and the | characters used as column delimiters). The output when using the --quick option is 25 characters wide; this is equal to the number of characters needed to represent -9223372036854775808, which is the longest possible value that can be stored in a (signed) BIGINT column, or 19 characters, plus the 4 characters used for padding and column delimiters. The difference can be seen here:

$> mysql -t test -e "SELECT * FROM t1"
+-------+
| c1    |
+-------+
|   100 |
|  1000 |
| 10000 |
|    10 |
+-------+

$> mysql --quick -t test -e "SELECT * FROM t1"
+----------------------+
| c1                   |
+----------------------+
|                  100 |
|                 1000 |
|                10000 |
|                   10 |
+----------------------+

--raw, -r

For tabular output, the “boxing” around columns enables one column value to be distinguished from another. For nontabular output (such as is produced in batch mode or when the --batch or --silent option is given), special characters are escaped in the output so they can be identified easily. Newline, tab, NUL, and backslash are written as \n, \t, \0, and \\. The --raw option disables this character escaping.

The following example demonstrates tabular versus nontabular output and the use of raw mode to disable escaping:

% mysql
mysql> SELECT CHAR(92);
+----------+
| CHAR(92) |
+----------+
| \        |
+----------+

% mysql -s
mysql> SELECT CHAR(92);
CHAR(92)
\\

% mysql -s -r
mysql> SELECT CHAR(92);
CHAR(92)
\

--reconnect

If the connection to the server is lost, automatically try to reconnect. A single reconnect attempt is made each time the connection is lost. To suppress reconnection behavior, use --skip-reconnect.

--safe-updates, --i-am-a-dummy, -U

If this option is enabled, UPDATE and DELETE statements that do not use a key in the WHERE clause or a LIMIT clause produce an error. In addition, restrictions are placed on SELECT statements that produce (or are estimated to produce) very large result sets. If you have set this option in an option file, you can use --skip-safe-updates on the command line to override it. For more information about this option, see Using Safe-Updates Mode (--safe-updates).

--secure-auth

Do not send passwords to the server in old (pre-4.1) format. This prevents connections except for servers that use the newer password format.

As of MySQL 5.7.5, this option is deprecated; expect it to be removed in a future MySQL release. It is always enabled and attempting to disable it (--skip-secure-auth, --secure-auth=0) produces an error. Before MySQL 5.7.5, this option is enabled by default but can be disabled.

--select-limit=value

The automatic limit for SELECT statements when using --safe-updates. (Default value is 1,000.)

--server-public-key-path=file_name

The path name to a file in PEM format containing a client-side copy of the public key required by the server for RSA key pair-based password exchange. This option applies to clients that authenticate with the sha256_password or caching_sha2_password authentication plugin. This option is ignored for accounts that do not authenticate with one of those plugins. It is also ignored if RSA-based password exchange is not used, as is the case when the client connects to the server using a secure connection.

If --server-public-key-path=file_name is given and specifies a valid public key file, it takes precedence over --get-server-public-key.

For sha256_password, this option applies only if MySQL was built using OpenSSL.

For information about the sha256_password and caching_sha2_password plugins, see Section 6.4.1.5, “SHA-256 Pluggable Authentication”, and Section 6.4.1.4, “Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication”.

--shared-memory-base-name=name

On Windows, the shared-memory name to use for connections made using shared memory to a local server. The default value is MYSQL. The shared-memory name is case-sensitive.

This option applies only if the server was started with the shared_memory system variable enabled to support shared-memory connections.

--show-warnings

Cause warnings to be shown after each statement if there are any. This option applies to interactive and batch mode.

--sigint-ignore

Ignore SIGINT signals (typically the result of typing Control+C).

Without this option, typing Control+C interrupts the current statement if there is one, or cancels any partial input line otherwise.

--silent, -s

Silent mode. Produce less output. This option can be given multiple times to produce less and less output.

This option results in nontabular output format and escaping of special characters. Escaping may be disabled by using raw mode; see the description for the --raw option.

--skip-column-names, -N

Do not write column names in results. Use of this option causes the output to be right-aligned, as shown here:

$> echo "SELECT * FROM t1" | mysql -t test
+-------+
| c1    |
+-------+
| a,c,d |
| c     |
+-------+
$> echo "SELECT * FROM t1" | ./mysql -uroot -Nt test
+-------+
| a,c,d |
|     c |
+-------+

--skip-line-numbers, -L

Do not write line numbers for errors. Useful when you want to compare result files that include error messages.

--socket=path, -S path

For connections to localhost, the Unix socket file to use, or, on Windows, the name of the named pipe to use.

On Windows, this option applies only if the server was started with the named_pipe system variable enabled to support named-pipe connections. In addition, the user making the connection must be a member of the Windows group specified by the named_pipe_full_access_group system variable.

--ssl*

Options that begin with --ssl specify whether to connect to the server using encryption and indicate where to find SSL keys and certificates. See Command Options for Encrypted Connections.

--syslog, -j

This option causes mysql to send interactive statements to the system logging facility. On Unix, this is syslog; on Windows, it is the Windows Event Log. The destination where logged messages appear is system dependent. On Linux, the destination is often the /var/log/messages file.

Here is a sample of output generated on Linux by using --syslog. This output is formatted for readability; each logged message actually takes a single line.

Mar  7 12:39:25 myhost MysqlClient[20824]:
  SYSTEM_USER:'oscar', MYSQL_USER:'my_oscar', CONNECTION_ID:23,
  DB_SERVER:'127.0.0.1', DB:'--', QUERY:'USE test;'
Mar  7 12:39:28 myhost MysqlClient[20824]:
  SYSTEM_USER:'oscar', MYSQL_USER:'my_oscar', CONNECTION_ID:23,
  DB_SERVER:'127.0.0.1', DB:'test', QUERY:'SHOW TABLES;'

For more information, see Section 4.5.1.3, “mysql Client Logging”.

--table, -t

Display output in table format. This is the default for interactive use, but can be used to produce table output in batch mode.

--tee=file_name

Append a copy of output to the given file. This option works only in interactive mode. Section 4.5.1.2, “mysql Client Commands”, discusses tee files further.

--tls-version=protocol_list

The permissible TLS protocols for encrypted connections. The value is a list of one or more comma-separated protocol names. The protocols that can be named for this option depend on the SSL library used to compile MySQL. For details, see Section 6.3.2, “Encrypted Connection TLS Protocols and Ciphers”.

This option was added in MySQL 5.7.10.

--unbuffered, -n

Flush the buffer after each query.

--user=user_name, -u user_name

The user name of the MySQL account to use for connecting to the server.

--verbose, -v

Verbose mode. Produce more output about what the program does. This option can be given multiple times to produce more and more output. (For example, -v -v -v produces table output format even in batch mode.)

--version, -V

Display version information and exit.

--vertical, -E

Print query output rows vertically (one line per column value). Without this option, you can specify vertical output for individual statements by terminating them with \G.

--wait, -w

If the connection cannot be established, wait and retry instead of aborting.

--xml, -X

Produce XML output.

<field name="column_name">NULL</field>

The output when --xml is used with mysql matches that of mysqldump --xml. See Section 4.5.4, “mysqldump — A Database Backup Program”, for details.

The XML output also uses an XML namespace, as shown here:

$> mysql --xml -uroot -e "SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'version%'"
<?xml version="1.0"?>

<resultset statement="SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'version%'" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<row>
<field name="Variable_name">version</field>
<field name="Value">5.0.40-debug</field>
</row>

<row>
<field name="Variable_name">version_comment</field>
<field name="Value">Source distribution</field>
</row>

<row>
<field name="Variable_name">version_compile_machine</field>
<field name="Value">i686</field>
</row>

<row>
<field name="Variable_name">version_compile_os</field>
<field name="Value">suse-linux-gnu</field>
</row>
</resultset>