Run system commands when logged into MySQL

Question

This is NOT about MySQL's "data directory".

When I log into MySQL on my machine (Windows 10 OS) I know that MySQL still has a "current working directory": importing a .sql file works, giving only the filename, if the file is located in the same directory as the one where I went

> mysql -u ....

So I wondered whether it was possible to get the CWD when actually logged into MySQL. Then I wondered whether it might be possible to change it, ie to navigate somewhere else. Then I wondered about running system (ie command prompt) commands generally, while still logged in to MySQL.

Here we see a claim that you can indeed do all these things... by going something like:

\! ls -l

On my machine this doesn't work... probably because it's not a Linux OS. I get unknown command '\\!' ...

Is there any way to do this in Windows?

Answer 1

You're right. The Windows version of the mysql command line client lacks the shell escape \\! command.

It is an open source project :-). You or I could give them a pull request with a fix. But then we'd have to decide whether we wanted cmd or powershell in the escaped process.