The MySQL server and client programs look for options files in the standard locations and read them in order; values from later files take precedence over earlier ones. Options specified on the command line override values from options files.

You can tell a MySQL program to ignore the default options files by telling it to read a specific file at a location given with the defaults-file option. For example, you can write:

$ mysql --defaults-file=path_to_options_file

If you’d like to use an options file alongside the default files, you can specify it using the defaults-extra-file option:

$ mysql --defaults-extra-file=path_to_local_options_file

Finally, you can prevent programs from reading in any options files by adding the no-defaults option: