mysql: hiding command line parameters

If you run mysql --withparameters, in a shell script, all the parameters are visible
say you need count of records to be monitored

file: count.sql

select count(*) from CONTACT;

and you run,
watch -n1 "mysql -hmysqlhost -umysqluser -pmysqlpassword mydb < count.sql "

using ps axwwf|grep mysql, will display it

watch -n1 mysql -hmysqlhost -umysqluser -pmysqlpassword mydb < count.sql

the better option would be creating options file like .my.cnf for client
but there would be default .my.cnf file existing, if not you can do same.

So we will have our own

file: .my-options.cnf

[client]

user=mysqluser

password=mysqlpassword

host=mysqlhost

database=mydb

set owner read-only, and execute

mysql --defaults-extra-file=~/.my-options.cnf < count.sql

this does show the parameters when done ps, but atleast file-permission will protect it and the parameters are hidden.

if you need to put it in cron-job, specify the full path for the above files.