How can I check the SQL syntax in a .sql file?

Question

How can I check the SQL syntax in a .sql file?

Answer 1

TLDR:

>awk '{print "EXPLAIN " $0}' statements.sql | mysql --force -u user -p database | grep "ERROR"

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Strangely, mysql does not have a built-in switch for this, but you can check syntax by adding the EXPLAIN statement in front of your queries.

If you have a statements.sql file with each statement on one line, prepend EXPLAIN in front of all lines with:

>awk '{print "EXPLAIN " $0}' statements.sql > check.sql

You can then run the statements with the mysql command-line tool and use --force to have it continue on error. It will print an error for any statements with incorrect syntax.

>mysql --force -u user -p database < check.sql

Or to only view the lines with errors:

>mysql --force -u user -p database < check.sql | grep "ERROR"

You can do all of this on one line without creating an intermediate file:

>awk '{print "EXPLAIN " $0}' statements.sql | mysql --force -u user -p database | grep "ERROR"