If you maintain a log of an interactive MySQL session, you can refer
back to it later to see what you did and how. Under Unix, you can use
the script program to save a log of a terminal
session. This works for arbitrary commands, so it works for
interactive mysql sessions, too. However,
script also adds a carriage return to every line
of the transcript, and it includes any backspacing and corrections
you make as you’re typing. A method of logging an
interactive mysql session that
doesn’t add extra messy junk to the log file (and
that works under both Unix and Windows) is to start
mysql with a
--tee
option that specifies the
name of the file in which to record the session:[11]
% mysql --tee=tmp.out cookbook
To control session logging from within mysql, use
\T
and \t
to turn tee output on
and off. This is useful if you want to record only parts of a
session:
mysql>\T tmp.out
Logging to file 'tmp.out' mysql>\t
Outfile disabled.
A tee file contains the queries you enter as well as the output from those queries, so it’s a convenient way to keep a complete record of them. It’s useful, for example, when you want to print or mail a session or parts of it, or for capturing query output to include as an example in a document. It’s also a good way to try out queries to make sure you have the syntax correct before putting them in a script file; you can create the script from the tee file later by editing it to remove everything except those queries you want to keep.
mysql appends session output to the end of the tee file rather than overwriting it. If you want an existing file to contain only the contents of a single session, remove it first before invoking mysql.
The ability to create tee files was introduced in MySQL 3.23.28.
[11] It’s called a “tee” because it’s similar to the Unix tee utility. For more background, try this command:
Get MySQL Cookbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.