MySQL Cookbook

Using mysql in Shell Scripts

Problem

You want to invoke mysql from within a shell script rather than using it interactively.

Solution

There’s no rule against that. Just be sure to supply the appropriate arguments to the command.

Discussion

If you need to process query results within a program, you’ll typically use a MySQL programming interface designed specifically for the language you’re using (for example, in a Perl script you’d use the DBI interface). But for simple, short, or quick-and-dirty tasks, it may be easier just to invoke mysql directly from within a shell script, possibly postprocessing the results with other commands. For example, an easy way to write a MySQL server status tester is to use a shell script that invokes mysql, as is demonstrated later in this section. Shell scripts are also useful for prototyping programs that you intend to convert for use with a standard API later.

For Unix shell scripting, I recommend that you stick to shells in the Bourne shell family, such as sh, bash, or ksh. (The csh and tcsh shells are more suited to interactive use than to scripting.) This section provides some examples showing how to write Unix scripts for /bin/sh. It also comments briefly on DOS scripting. The sidebar “Using Executable Programs” describes how to make scripts executable and run them.

Using Executable Programs

When you write a program, you’ll generally need to make it executable before you can run it. In Unix, you do this by setting the “execute” file access modes ...