Simple one-file solution to ease using MySQL databases from the command line.

dbutil.py

"""
This is a short library to help connecting to a MySQL database from the command line.
You'll need MySQLdb (or its fork, mysql-client) to use this.
"""

from getpass import getpass
try:
    import MySQLdb
except ImportError as e:
    print(e)
    MySQLdb = None

def parse_connection(conn):
    """
    Parse a connection string of the form [user@]host[:port][/db], where all but the host section are optional.
    
    >>> from pprint import pprint
    >>> pprint(parse_connection('george:curious@yellow.hat/man'), width=100, compact=True)
    {'db': 'man', 'host': 'yellow.hat', 'passwd': 'curious', 'port': None, 'user': 'george'}
    """
    if '@' in conn:
        user, conn = conn.split('@', 1)
    else:
        user = None
        
    if user and ':' in user:
        user, passwd = user.rsplit(':', 1)
    else:
        passwd = None
        
    if '/' in conn:
        conn, db = conn.rsplit('/', 1)
    else:
        db = None
        
    if ':' in conn:
        conn, port = conn.rsplit(':', 1)
    else:
        port = None
        
    host = conn
    
    return dict(host=host, port=port, db=db, user=user, passwd=passwd)
    
    
def query_connection(host=None, port=None, db=None, user=None, passwd=None):
    """Get all necessary, but absent, database connection parameters from the user.
    """
    if set(host) & set('@:/'):
        return query_connection(**parse_connection(host))

    if host is None:
        host = input('Host IP or domain for MySQL server?')

    if port is None:
        port = 3306
    else:
        port = int(port)
        
    if db is None:
        db = input('Which database at {host} to use?'.format(host=host))
        
    if user is None:
        user = input('Username for {host}:{port}?'.format(host=host, port=port))

    if passwd is None:
        passwd = getpass('Password for {user}@{host}:{port}/{db}? '.format(host=host, port=port, user=user, db=db))
    
    return dict(host=host, port=port, db=db, user=user, passwd=passwd)

        
def connect_mysql(host=None, port=None, db=None, user=None, passwd=None):
    """
    Returns a MySQL connection using the provided connection parameters.
    
    If any required parameters aren't given, the user will be asked to enter it.
    """
    verify_mysqldb(True)
    if None in (host, port, db, user, passwd):
        return connect_mysql(**query_connection(host, port, db, user, passwd))

    return MySQLdb.connect(host=host, port=port, user=user, passwd=passwd, db=db)
    
def verify_mysqldb(reimport=False):
    if not MySQLdb:
        import sys
        print("WARNING: The library MySQLdb is not available to this python instance `{0}` -- this script will not function."
            .format(sys.executable)
        )
        if reimport:
            import MySQLdb as MySQLdbReimport
            
if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    doctest.testmod()