mysql: SOURCE error 2?

Question

When I tried to source for a particular .sql file, namely 'metropolises.sql' that I created and saved previously from a database, the following error is displayed:

Failed to open file 'metropolises.sql', error: 2

Any idea what went wrong?

Answer 1

Assuming you mean that you are trying to use the source command in order to execute SQL statements from a text file, the error number given appears to be passed through from the POSIX layer.

Therefore, using this resource, we can deduce that the error value of 2 means "no such file or directory".

In short, you got the path wrong.

Try providing an absolute path, as it's not clear what the current working directory will be in the context of your MySQL server. You may be assuming that it's the working directory of your shell, but it's not obvious that we should expect this to be true.

Answer 2

Just use the absolute path of the file and then, instead of using backslashes, use forward slashes.

Example:

with backslashes : source C:\folder1\metropolises.sql
with forward slashes : source C:/folder1/metropolises.sql