How To Turn on Query Logs? - MySQL FAQs - Server Daemon mysqld Administration

If you want MySQL to write query logs to a file, you can use the "--log=fileName" option at the "mysqld" command line. The tutorial exercise below shows you a good example on how to use this option and view the query log file:

>cd \mysql\bin
>mkdir \mysql\logs
>mysqld --log=\mysql\logs\query.log

Starts another command window, and enter the following commands:

>cd \mysql\bin
>mysql -u root -pretneciyf

mysql> USE test;
Database changed

mysql> show tables;
+----------------+
| Tables_in_test |
+----------------+
| articles       |
| links          |
| test           |
+----------------+
3 rows in set (0.03 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM links;
+------+-------------------+
| id   | name              |
+------+-------------------+
|    1 | dba.fyicenter.com |
|   10 | dba.fyicenter.com |
+------+-------------------+
2 rows in set (0.11 sec)

mysql> EXIT;
Bye

Here is what you will get in the query log file:

>type \mysql\logs\query.log

mysqld, Version: 5.0.24-community-log. started with:
Tcp port: 0  Unix socket: (null)
Time                 Id Command    Argument
20:19:41	      3 Connect     root@localhost on 
20:20:00	      3 Query       SELECT DATABASE()
    		      3 Init DB     test
20:20:05	      3 Query       show tables
20:20:52	      3 Query       SELECT * FROM links
20:21:02	      3 Quit