Using my.ini to access mysql.exe from the commandline without -p?

Question

On Linux, my.cnf can be altered such that mysql -u myusername will work on the client side without the -p option. It's safer to use config files to set this up rather than putting the password in at the login line, and it's more convenient (though perhaps less safe) than putting the password in at the default -p prompt. But I have yet been able to find a guide on altering the my.ini file to achieve this result. For reference, I have been using: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/option-files.html (my version is 5.7). I also have read the my.ini file. The language used is too ambiguous and technical for me to understand so I hope to find or eventually compose a real guide.

According to my research:

• my.cnf also works.
• mysql will search for .cnf files at the locations specified in the mysqldvlhelp.txt file (which does not exist on Windows).

Answer 1

In your my.ini, you can create a client section to put the user and password.

[client]
user=yourmysqluserhere
password=yourpasswordhere

Answer 2

For example on Windows, you can set only the password banana under [client] in my.ini as shown below. *My answer explains [client] and my answer explains where my.ini is located on Windows and my answer explains how to log in by setting both the user john and the password banana under [client] in my.ini:

# "my.ini"

[client]
password="banana"

Then, you can log in by setting my.ini's location and john to --defaults-file= or --defaults-extra-file= and -u respectively as shown below. *--defaults-file= or --defaults-extra-file= must be the 1st option otherwise there is the error:

mysql --defaults-file='C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\my.ini' -u john

Or:

mysql --defaults-extra-file='C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\my.ini' -u john

*Not setting my.ini's location to --defaults-file= or --defaults-extra-file= gets error as shown below:

mysql -u john
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'john'@'localhost' (using password: NO)