Session System Variables
Several system variables exist only as session variables. These cannot be set at server startup but can be assigned values at runtime using the SET
statement (except for those that are read only). Most of them are not displayed by SHOW VARIABLES
, but you can obtain their values using SELECT
. This section describes the session system variables. For information about setting or displaying their values, see Section 5.1.5, “Using System Variables”. For example:
mysql>SELECT @@autocommit;
+--------------+
| @@autocommit |
+--------------+
| 1 |
+--------------+
The lettercase of these variables does not matter.
The following table lists the system variables that have only session scope:
Table 5.3. mysqld Session System Variable Summary
Name | Cmd-Line | Option file | System Var | Dynamic |
---|---|---|---|---|
autocommit | Yes | Yes | ||
big-tables | Yes | Yes | ||
- Variable: big_tables | Yes | Yes | ||
error_count | Yes | No | ||
foreign_key_checks | Yes | Yes | ||
identity | Yes | Yes | ||
insert_id | Yes | Yes | ||
last_insert_id | Yes | Yes | ||
ndb_table_no_logging | Yes | Yes | ||
ndb_table_temporary | Yes | Yes | ||
profiling | Yes | Yes | ||
rand_seed1 | Yes | Yes | ||
rand_seed2 | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_auto_is_null | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_big_selects | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_big_tables | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_buffer_result | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_log_bin | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_log_off | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_log_update | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_notes | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_quote_show_create | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_safe_updates | Yes | Yes | ||
sql_warnings | Yes | Yes | ||
timestamp | Yes | Yes | ||
transaction_allow_batching | Yes | Yes | ||
unique_checks | Yes | Yes | ||
warning_count | Yes | No |
-
The autocommit mode. If set to 1, all changes to a table take effect immediately. If set to 0, you must use
COMMIT
to accept a transaction orROLLBACK
to cancel it. By default, client connections begin withautocommit
set to 1. If you changeautocommit
mode from 0 to 1, MySQL performs an automaticCOMMIT
of any open transaction. Another way to begin a transaction is to use aSTART TRANSACTION
orBEGIN
statement. See Section 12.4.1, “START TRANSACTION
,COMMIT
, andROLLBACK
Syntax”. -
If set to 1, all temporary tables are stored on disk rather than in memory. This is a little slower, but the error
The table
does not occur fortbl_name
is fullSELECT
operations that require a large temporary table. The default value for a new connection is 0 (use in-memory temporary tables). Normally, you should never need to set this variable, because in-memory tables are automatically converted to disk-based tables as required.Note
This variable was formerly named
sql_big_tables
. -
The number of errors that resulted from the last statement that generated messages. This variable is read only. See Section 12.5.5.18, “
SHOW ERRORS
Syntax”. -
If set to 1 (the default), foreign key constraints for
InnoDB
tables are checked. If set to 0, they are ignored. Disabling foreign key checking can be useful for reloadingInnoDB
tables in an order different from that required by their parent/child relationships. See Section 13.6.4.4, “FOREIGN KEY
Constraints”.Setting
foreign_key_checks
to 0 also affects data definition statements:DROP SCHEMA
drops a schema even if it contains tables that have foreign keys that are referred to by tables outside the schema, andDROP TABLE
drops tables that have foreign keys that are referred to by other tables.Note
Setting
foreign_key_checks
to 1 does not trigger a scan of the existing table data. Therefore, rows added to the table whileforeign_key_checks = 0
will not be verified for consistency. -
This variable is a synonym for the
last_insert_id
variable. It exists for compatibility with other database systems. You can read its value withSELECT @@identity
, and set it usingSET identity
. -
The value to be used by the following
INSERT
orALTER TABLE
statement when inserting anAUTO_INCREMENT
value. This is mainly used with the binary log. -
The value to be returned from
LAST_INSERT_ID()
. This is stored in the binary log when you useLAST_INSERT_ID()
in a statement that updates a table. Setting this variable does not update the value returned by themysql_insert_id()
C API function. -
If set to 0 (the default), statement profiling is disabled. If set to 1, statement profiling is enabled and the
SHOW PROFILES
andSHOW PROFILE
statements provide access to profiling information. See Section 12.5.5.33, “SHOW PROFILES
Syntax”. This variable was added in MySQL 5.1.24. -
The number of statements for which to maintain profiling information if
profiling
is enabled. The default value is 15. The maximum value is 100. Setting the value to 0 effectively disables profiling. See Section 12.5.5.33, “SHOW PROFILES
Syntax”. This variable was added in MySQL 5.1.24. -
The
rand_seed1
andrand_seed2
variables exist as session variables only, and can be set but not read. Beginning with MySQL 5.1.18, the variables — but not their values — are shown in the output ofSHOW VARIABLES
.The purpose of these variables is to support replication of the
RAND()
function. For statements that invokeRAND()
, the master passes two values to the slave, where they are used to seed the random number generator. The slave uses these values to set the session variablesrand_seed1
andrand_seed2
so thatRAND()
on the slave generates the same value as on the master. -
See the description for
rand_seed1
. -
If set to 1 (the default), you can find the last inserted row for a table that contains an
AUTO_INCREMENT
column by using the following construct:WHERE
auto_increment_column
IS NULLThis behavior is used by some ODBC programs, such as Access.
-
If set to 0, MySQL aborts
SELECT
statements that are likely to take a very long time to execute (that is, statements for which the optimizer estimates that the number of examined rows exceeds the value ofmax_join_size
). This is useful when an inadvisableWHERE
statement has been issued. The default value for a new connection is 1, which allows allSELECT
statements.If you set the
max_join_size
system variable to a value other thanDEFAULT
,sql_big_selects
is set to 0. -
If set to 1,
sql_buffer_result
forces results fromSELECT
statements to be put into temporary tables. This helps MySQL free the table locks early and can be beneficial in cases where it takes a long time to send results to the client. The default value is 0. -
If set to 0, no logging is done to the binary log for the client. The client must have the
SUPER
privilege to set this option. The default value is 1. -
If set to 1, no logging is done to the general query log for this client. The client must have the
SUPER
privilege to set this option. The default value is 0. -
This variable is deprecated, and is mapped to
sql_log_bin
. -
If set to 1 (the default), warnings of
Note
level are recorded. If set to 0,Note
warnings are suppressed. mysqldump includes output to set this variable to 0 so that reloading the dump file does not produce warnings for events that do not affect the integrity of the reload operation. -
If set to 1 (the default), the server quotes identifiers for
SHOW CREATE TABLE
andSHOW CREATE DATABASE
statements. If set to 0, quoting is disabled. This option is enabled by default so that replication works for identifiers that require quoting. See Section 12.5.5.12, “SHOW CREATE TABLE
Syntax”, and Section 12.5.5.8, “SHOW CREATE DATABASE
Syntax”. -
If set to 1, MySQL aborts
UPDATE
orDELETE
statements that do not use a key in theWHERE
clause or aLIMIT
clause. This makes it possible to catchUPDATE
orDELETE
statements where keys are not used properly and that would probably change or delete a large number of rows. The default value is 0. -
This variable controls whether single-row
INSERT
statements produce an information string if warnings occur. The default is 0. Set the value to 1 to produce an information string. -
timestamp = {
timestamp_value
| DEFAULT}Set the time for this client. This is used to get the original timestamp if you use the binary log to restore rows.
timestamp_value
should be a Unix epoch timestamp, not a MySQL timestamp.SET timestamp
affects the value returned byNOW()
but not bySYSDATE()
. This means that timestamp settings in the binary log have no effect on invocations ofSYSDATE()
. The server can be started with the--sysdate-is-now
option to causeSYSDATE()
to be an alias forNOW()
, in which caseSET timestamp
affects both functions. -
If set to 1 (the default), uniqueness checks for secondary indexes in
InnoDB
tables are performed. If set to 0, storage engines are allowed to assume that duplicate keys are not present in input data. If you know for certain that your data does not contain uniqueness violations, you can set this to 0 to speed up large table imports toInnoDB
.Note that setting this variable to 0 does not require storage engines to ignore duplicate keys. An engine is still allowed to check for them and issue duplicate-key errors if it detects them.
-
The number of errors, warnings, and notes that resulted from the last statement that generated messages. This variable is read only. See Section 12.5.5.42, “
SHOW WARNINGS
Syntax”.