The mysql client typically is used interactively, like this:
shell> mysql db_name
However, it is also possible to put your SQL statements in a file
and then tell mysql to read its input from that file. To do so,
create a text file text_file that contains the statements you
wish to execute. Then invoke mysql as shown here:
shell> mysql db_name < text_file
If you place a USE db_name statement as the first statement in
the file, it is unnecessary to specify the database name on the
command line:
shell> mysql < text_file
If you are already running mysql, you can execute an SQL script
file using the source command or \. command:
mysql> source file_name
mysql> \. file_name
Sometimes you may want your script to display progress
information to the user. For this you can insert statements like
this:
SELECT ´<info_to_display>´ AS ´ ´;
The statement shown outputs <info_to_display>.
You can also invoke mysql with the --verbose option, which causes
each statement to be displayed before the result that it
produces.
mysql ignores Unicode byte order mark (BOM) characters at the
beginning of input files. Presence of a BOM does not cause mysql
to change its default character set. To do that, invoke mysql
with an option such as --default-character-set=utf8.
