From the command line, connecting to MYSQL may require knowledge of the host, the username and the password that are provided by the hosting company that you are using.

mysql -h host -u username -p

The above line starts out by naming the program we want to run (MYSQL). The "-h" part identifies the host, which will be provided by your hosting company and typed in the place of "host". The "-u" identifies the username, which is also provided by the hosting company and will replace the word "username". The "-p" part states that there is a password that needs to be entered, but notice that it is not entered here (for security reasons). Instead, after typing in this line and hitting the <enter> key, you will be prompted with something like this:

Enter password:

...And there you type in your password, where it will either not show up as you type it in, or show up as a series of asterisks * that keep passersby from reading your password. (unless they watched your fingers as you typed it in!)

After typing in your password and hitting <enter> again, you will be presented with a welcome screen similar to this:

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 25338 to server version: 5.1.55-standard

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

And you are ready to type in commands that can create databases, add information, update information, etc.

All commands that you type in will show up after the "mysql>".

When you are finished, simply type in "quit" and you will be signed out and returned to the original command prompt.

mysql> quit

Let's have some fun!