Hello
I use the mysql command line tool quite often and always wondered why
there's no feature that lets me quickly see the syntax of a "FOREIGN
KEY" or "GRANT" command. Now while browsing the source I found the
new "syntax" command in 4.0.12 and got the idea of implementing this
syntax help of myself.
What do you think of a client command:
mysql> syntax select; (or "\S" or "SHOW SYNTAX OF")
SELECT [STRAIGHT_JOIN]
[SQL_SMALL_RESULT] [SQL_BIG_RESULT] [SQL_BUFFER_RESULT]
[SQL_CACHE | SQL_NO_CACHE] [SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS] [HIGH_PRIORITY]
[DISTINCT | DISTINCTROW | ALL]
select_expression,...
[INTO {OUTFILE | DUMPFILE} 'file_name' export_options]
[FROM table_references
[WHERE where_definition]
[GROUP BY {unsigned_integer | col_name | formula} [ASC | DESC], ...]
[HAVING where_definition]
[ORDER BY {unsigned_integer | col_name | formula} [ASC | DESC] ,...]
[LIMIT [offset,] rows | rows OFFSET offset]
[PROCEDURE procedure_name(argument_list)]
[FOR UPDATE | LOCK IN SHARE MODE]]
Reference: 6.4.1 http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/SELECT.html
I managed to hacked a working demo in less than 10 minutes which is
simply a copy of the syntax function and which uses syntax() to pipe the
output of an arbitrary command back to mysql (of course it could be a C
function, too, but why the unnecessary burden and having it as seperate
program makes it useable standalone, too!)
This program could be a perl program which either has syntax definitions
hardcoded or, even better, is able to extract them from the docs.
A preinstalled html documentation could be prerequisite which has
two comments like "<!-- BEGIN SYNTAX: SELECT --> ... <!-- END SYNTAX -->
so that the syntax is easily extractable. Something in the kind of
cat /usr/share/doc/mysql/en/$1.html
could be enough for the first start, too.
The final stage would then be that this help command is called whenever
on presses e.g. two times <tab> after writing a command like a command
completition.
Any suggestions and comments?
bye,
-christian-
P.S.: Please CC me, I'm not subscribed. Thanks.
--
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
civilization.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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