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 command.
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´
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 multi-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. For more
information, see the section called 'MYSQL 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, \c
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.
• delimiter str, \d str
Change the string that mysql interprets as the separator
between SQL statements. The default is the semicolon
character (';').
The delimiter can be specified as an unquoted or quoted
argument. Quoting can be done with either single quote (´) or
douple quote (") characters. To include a quote within a
quoted string, either quote the string with the other 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 MariaDB. For
an unquoted argument, the delmiter 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.
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,
and for parsing the body of stored procedures and functions,
triggers, and events.
• edit, \e
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.
• ego, \G
Send the current statement to the server to be executed and
display the result using vertical format.
• exit, \q
Exit mysql.
• go, \g
Send the current statement to the server to be executed.
• nopager, \n
Disable output paging. See the description for pager.
The nopager command works only in Unix.
• notee, \t
Disable output copying to the tee file. See the description
for tee.
• nowarning, \w
Enable display of warnings after each statement.
• pager [command], \P [command]
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, \p
Print the current input statement without executing it.
• prompt [str], \R [str]
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>.
• quit, \q
Exit mysql.
• rehash, \#
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, you can specify path name separators as
/ or \\.
• status, \s
Provide status information about the connection and the
server you are using. If you are running in --safe-updates
mode, status also prints the values for the mysql variables
that affect your queries.
• system command, \! command
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, \u db_name
Use db_name as the default database.
• warnings, \W
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 via 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 │
│ │ (new in 5.1.12) │
├───────┼────────────────────────────┤
│\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 │
│ │ user_name@host_name │
│ │ account name │
├───────┼────────────────────────────┤
│\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 │
├───────┼────────────────────────────┤
│\x │ │
│ │ x, for any 'x' not │
│ │ listed above │
└───────┴────────────────────────────┘
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 MariaDB 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
allowable prompt options and the set of special escape
sequences that are recognized in 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 HH:MM:SS> format:
[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>
