Sometimes, I want to pop onto a database server, check the status of something, and then logout. So, for example, if I want to check on the number query cache free blocks, I run this long command:

% mysqladmin -u admin -p extended | grep -i qcache

Then I type in the password. Well, I grew tired of typing in the extra options, plus the password. Turns out, MySQL will look for the configuration file .my.cnf in your home directory after it looks in /etc/my.cnf (it looks in a few other places as well). So I put this in my ~/.my.cnf:

[client]
user=admin
password=secret

And now I can simply run:

% mysqladmin extended | grep -i qcache

and it works right away.  Note that the password is stored in the clear.