To execute a statement directly from the command line, specify
it using the
-e
(or --execute
) option. For example, to find
out how many rows are in the limbs
table, run this command:
%mysql -e "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM limbs" cookbook
+----------+
| COUNT(*) |
+----------+
| 12 |
+----------+
To execute multiple statements this way, separate them with semicolons:
%mysql -e "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM limbs;SELECT NOW()" cookbook
+----------+
| COUNT(*) |
+----------+
| 12 |
+----------+
+---------------------+
| NOW() |
+---------------------+
| 2006-07-04 10:42:22 |
+---------------------+
By default, results generated by statements that are specified
with -e
are displayed in tabular format if output
goes to the terminal, and in tab-delimited format otherwise. To learn
what these different formats are, see Sending Query Output to a File or to a Program. To choose a particular format,
see Selecting Tabular or Tab-Delimited Query Output Format.
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