Command-Line MySQL Client

Overview

In this tutorial, we will learn about command-Line MySQL client. We can use the command-line client to connect to the MySQL Server and execute SQL queries.

We will learn how to connect to MySQL server using the command-line client.

MySQL Client

On Windows open the command prompt and type the MySQL command.

Instructions to start the MySQL client can be found here:

https://www.testingdocs.com/start-mysql-client-on-windows-11/

Get Help

We can get help by using the help command:

/> mysql –help

Command-Line Options

Some of the command-line options are as follows:

Flag/Option	Parameter	Description
-h	hostname	hostname or the IP address of the host machine where the MySQL Server is running or trying to connect.
-u	username	Specify the username of the user.
-p	password	Specify the password of the user.
<	script file	.sql file to execute commands in the file.
>	output file	Save the output to the file.

Examples

Let’s see some examples and usage of the mysql command.

In this example, we will connect to the local MySQL Server as a root user. We can omit the -h hostname flag if the MySQL Server and the MySQL client are running on the same machine.

/> mysql -u root -p

C:\Users\testingdocs>mysql -u root -p
Enter password: **********
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 9
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server – GPL

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the current input statement.

MySQL Command-line Client

Successful connection displays the Welcome message,Copyright information, help information and the mysql> prompt.

In the next example, we will connect to MySQL Server running on remote demo.testingdocs.com as john user and execute commands in createTables.sql SQL statement file.

/> mysql -h demo.testingdocs.com -u john < createTables.sql -p

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