12.1 Overview of the different MySQL programs

All MySQL clients that communicate with the server using the mysqlclient library use the following environment variables:

Name	Description
MYSQL_UNIX_PORT	The default socket; used for connections to localhost
MYSQL_TCP_PORT	The default TCP/IP port
MYSQL_PWD	The default password
MYSQL_DEBUG	Debug-trace options when debugging
TMPDIR	The directory where temporary tables/files are created

Use of MYSQL_PWD is insecure. 6.3 Connecting to the MySQL server.

The `mysql' client uses the file named in the MYSQL_HISTFILE environment variable to save the command line history. The default value for the history file is `$HOME/.mysql_history', where $HOME is the value of the HOME environment variable.

All MySQL programs take many different options. However, every MySQL program provides a --help option that you can use to get a full description of the program's different options. For example, try mysql --help.

You can override default options for all standard client programs with an option file. 4.15.4 Option files.

The list below briefly describes the MySQL programs:

isamchk

Utility to describe, check, optimize and repair MySQL tables. Because isamchk has many functions, it is described in its own chapter. 13 Maintaining a MySQL installation.

make_binary_release

Makes a binary release of a compiled MySQL. This could be sent by FTP to `/pub/mysql/Incoming' on ftp.tcx.se for the convenience of other MySQL users.

msql2mysql

A shell script that converts mSQL programs to MySQL. It doesn't handle all cases, but it gives a good start when converting.

mysql

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 (e.g., as a filter), the result is presented in tab-separated format. (The output format can be changed using command-line options.) You can run scripts simply like this:

shell> mysql database < script.sql > output.tab

If you have problems due to insufficient memory in the client, use the --quick option! This forces mysql to use mysql_use_result() rather than mysql_store_result() to retrieve the result set.

mysqlaccess

A script that checks the access privileges for a host, user and database combination.

mysqladmin

Utility for performing administrative operations, such as creating or dropping databases, reloading the grant tables, flushing tables to disk and reopening log files. mysqladmin can also be used to retrieve version, process and status information from the server. mysqladmin.

mysqlbug

The MySQL bug report script. This script should always be used when filing a bug report to the MySQL list.

mysqld

The SQL daemon. This should always be running.

mysqldump

Dumps a MySQL database into a file as SQL statements or as tab-separated text files. Enhanced freeware originally by Igor Romanenko. mysqldump.

mysqlimport

Imports text files into their respective tables using LOAD DATA INFILE. mysqlimport.

mysqlshow

Displays information about databases, tables, columns and indexes.

mysql_install_db

Creates the MySQL grant tables with default privileges. This is usually executed only once, when first installing MySQL on a system.

replace

A utility program that is used by msql2mysql, but that has more general applicability as well. replace changes strings in place in files or on the standard input. Uses a finite state machine to match longer strings first. Can be used to swap strings. For example, this command swaps a and b in the given files:

shell> replace a b b a -- file1 file2 ...

safe_mysqld

A script that starts the mysqld daemon with some safety features, such as restarting the server when an error occurs and logging runtime information to a log file.