Export blob from mysql to file in bash script

Question

I'm trying to write a bash script that, among other things, extracts information from a mysql database. I tried the following to extract a file from entry 20:
mysql -se "select file_column_name from table where id=20;" >file.txt

That gave me a file.txt with the file name, not the file contents. How would I get the actual blob into file.txt?

Answer 1

Turn the value in file.txt into a variable and then use it as you need to? ie

blobFile=$(cat file.txt)
echo "----- contents of $blobFile ---------"
cat $blobFile
# copy the file somewhere else
scp $blobFile user@Remote /path/to/remote/loc/for/blobFile
# look for info in blobfile
grep specialInfo $blobFile
# etc ...

Is that what you want/need to do?

I hope this helps.