Question

I need to run a specific mysql query upon wget, which is running in the background, finishes downloading a file. For example…

wget http://domain/file.zip

then run:

UPDATE table SET status = ‘live’ WHERE id = ‘1234’

How would I go about doing this?

Answer 1

I would recommend launching the wget command in a subshell so you can ensure it completes before you run your mysql command. In bash, this is done with parentheses.

Also use && so that the mysql command runs only if the wget command has a success exit status.

#!/bin/sh
(
  wget "http://domain/file.zip" && mysql -u user -ppassword database -e "UPDATE..."
) &

Putting the password in plaintext in the script is not necessarily a good idea because it can be viewed in a ps listing.

Instead, you can rely on the [client] section in your ~/.my.cnf file. You can also use the MYSQL_PWD environment variable. Either of these solutions means there’s no password visible in the command listing.