The MySQL CLI: Four Ways to Feed Inline SQL

Four ways to feed SQL to mysql without an interactive session:

1. Single inline statement (-e):

mysql … -e "SELECT * FROM asset WHERE uploaded_package_id = 100"

2. Multiple statements: semicolon-separate inside one -e:

mysql … -e "USE app_production; SELECT COUNT(*) FROM asset; SELECT NOW();"

3. Heredoc: cleanest for multi-line; quote the delimiter ('SQL') so the shell won’t expand $ / backticks:

mysql … -D app_production <<'SQL'
SELECT a.asset_id, a.`size`
FROM   asset AS a
WHERE  uploaded_package_id = 100;
SQL

4. From a .sql file:

mysql … app_production < query.sql      # shell redirect
mysql … -e "source query.sql"           # MySQL's own source command

• For machine-parseable output: add --batch (tab-separated) + --skip-column-names (drop the header), then pipe to jq / Python.

From this session: piped --batch --skip-column-names output into Python to build a per-asset_id JSON config from the prod query result.

One statement → -e; multi-line → heredoc (quote the delimiter); piping → add --batch --skip-column-names.

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References

• MySQL command-line options: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/command-line-options.html
• Connect to MySQL from the CLI: https://oneuptime.com/blog/post/2026-03-31-mysql-connect-cli-client/view

Related: back to the remote DB overview; pairs with one-shot vs REPL and the MySQL connection flags.