How to find the mysql data directory from command line in windows

Question

In linux I could find the mysql installation directory with the command which mysql. But I could not find any in windows. I tried echo %path% and it resulted many paths along with path to mysql bin.

I wanted to find the mysql data directory from command line in windows for use in batch program. I would also like to find mysql data directory from linux command line. Is it possible? or how can we do that?

In my case, the mysql data directory is on the installation folder i.e. ..MYSQL\mysql server 5\data It might be installed on any drive however. I want to get it returned from the command line.

Midrash

Answer 1

You can issue the following query from the command line:

mysql -uUSER -p -e 'SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name LIKE "%dir"'

Output (on Linux):

+---------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name             | Value                      |
+---------------------------+----------------------------+
| basedir                   | /usr                       |
| character_sets_dir        | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
| datadir                   | /var/lib/mysql/            |
| innodb_data_home_dir      |                            |
| innodb_log_group_home_dir | ./                         |
| lc_messages_dir           | /usr/share/mysql/          |
| plugin_dir                | /usr/lib/mysql/plugin/     |
| slave_load_tmpdir         | /tmp                       |
| tmpdir                    | /tmp                       |
+---------------------------+----------------------------+

Output (on macOS Sierra):

+---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Variable_name             | Value                                                     |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| basedir                   | /usr/local/mysql-5.7.17-macos10.12-x86_64/                |
| character_sets_dir        | /usr/local/mysql-5.7.17-macos10.12-x86_64/share/charsets/ |
| datadir                   | /usr/local/mysql/data/                                    |
| innodb_data_home_dir      |                                                           |
| innodb_log_group_home_dir | ./                                                        |
| innodb_tmpdir             |                                                           |
| lc_messages_dir           | /usr/local/mysql-5.7.17-macos10.12-x86_64/share/          |
| plugin_dir                | /usr/local/mysql/lib/plugin/                              |
| slave_load_tmpdir         | /var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n000009800002_/T/         |
| tmpdir                    | /var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n000009800002_/T/         |
+---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+

Or if you want only the data dir use:

mysql -uUSER -p -e 'SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir"'

These commands work on Windows too, but you need to invert the single and double quotes.

Btw, when executing which mysql in Linux as you told, you'll not get the installation directory on Linux. You'll only get the binary path, which is /usr/bin on Linux, but you see the mysql installation is using multiple folders to store files.

---

If you need the value of datadir as output, and only that, without column headers etc, but you don't have a GNU environment (awk|grep|sed ...) then use the following command line:

mysql -s -N -uUSER -p information_schema -e 'SELECT Variable_Value FROM GLOBAL_VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir"'

The command will select the value only from mysql's internal information_schema database and disables the tabular output and column headers.

Output on Linux:

/var/lib/mysql

Lucillalucille

I used mysql -uroot -p -e 'SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir" | grep "datadir" | awk "{print $2}"' for finding actual datadir path in linux. How can find only that path in windows? – Midrash

@Midrash You can do it just with the mysql command. No other tools are required. Check my update – Lucillalucille

The command executes ok in linux. It does not execute well in windows xp. the first command gives error - you have error in your sql syntax near where Variable_Name = 'dirname'. The second command gives error - unknown database information_schema – Midrash

When I try any of these commands in Win7 (AMPPS), I always get a long helpfile displayed, nothing useful. ??? – Undershot

@hek2mgl, What if I indeed want the path of the executable. What's the equivalent of which command in Windows? – Bary

This answer is for Linux only, it doesn't work on Windows 7 64bit, for that OS, login to mysql by mysql -uuser -p then enter password and then run query select @@datadir; just as As_913 stated. – Allenaallenby

The command is intended to work on Windows too. What's the issue? – Lucillalucille

To make this work under Windows, just invert the double/single quotes: mysql -uUSER -p -e "SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name LIKE '%dir'" – Overdue

Thanks for this! Running "SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir""; on my phpmyadmin database helped me find the location of the dabase directory. – Squishy

Answer 2

You can try this-

mysql> select @@datadir;

PS- It works on every platform.

Redskin

Works fine on Ubuntu. – Benzene

Works on Server 2012 r2 – Doornail

Works on RHEL 6 – Dronski

Works on CentOS 7 – Onestep

Works on Windows – Hodeida

Works on macos Monterey. – Germinate

Answer 3

if you want to find datadir in linux or windows you can do following command

mysql -uUSER -p -e 'SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir"'

if you are interested to find datadir you can use grep & awk command

mysql -uUSER -p -e 'SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_Name = "datadir"' | grep 'datadir' | awk '{print $2}'

Sketchbook

Answer 4

You can see the complete list of MySQL server options by running

mysqld --verbose --help

For example, to find out the path to the data directory on Linux, you can run:

mysqld --verbose --help | grep ^datadir

Example output:

datadir                                     /var/lib/mysql/

Stephi

interestingly this command gives me mysqld: Can't change dir to '/var/lib/mysql/' (Errcode: 13 - Permission denied) right before the actual datadir I have absolutely no idea why it tries to change working directory. I inspected a bit and it tries that when I use mysqld --verbose --help. Probably tries to do some work and needs to go to the data directory Anyways quick workaround is mysqld --verbose --help 2>/dev/null | grep ^datadir – Val

Answer 5

Use bellow command from CLI interface

[root@localhost~]# mysqladmin variables -p<password> | grep datadir

Cutaway

Answer 6

public function variables($variable="")
{
  return empty($variable) ? mysql_query("SHOW VARIABLES") : mysql_query("SELECT @@$variable");
}

/*get datadir*/
$res = variables("datadir");

/*or get all variables*/
$res = variables();

Issuance

Answer 7

Check if the Data directory is in "C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.7\Data". This is where it is on my computer. Someone might find this helpful.

Cappella