This set of example show how to execute commands stored in strings or script files, without the need of the interactive prompt. This is especially useful to when a shell script needs to interact with a database.

Execute command from a string

$ mysql -uroot -proot test -e'select * from people'

+----+-------+--------+
| id | name  | gender |
+----+-------+--------+
|  1 | Kathy | f      |
|  2 | John  | m      |
+----+-------+--------+

To format the output as a tab-separated grid, use the --silent parameter:

$ mysql -uroot -proot test -s -e'select * from people'

id      name    gender
1       Kathy   f
2       John    m

To omit the headers:

$ mysql -uroot -proot test -ss -e'select * from people'

1       Kathy   f
2       John    m

Execute from script file:

$ mysql -uroot -proot test < my_script.sql

$ mysql -uroot -proot test -e'source my_script.sql'

Write the output on a file

$ mysql -uroot -proot test < my_script.sql > out.txt

$ mysql -uroot -proot test -s -e'select * from people' > out.txt