MySQL Server supports a HELP statement that returns online information from the MySQL Reference manual (see Section 12.8.3, “HELP Syntax”). The proper operation of this statement requires that the help tables in the mysql database be initialized with help topic information, which is done by processing the contents of the fill_help_tables.sql script.

If you install MySQL using a binary or source distribution on Unix, help table setup occurs when you run mysql_install_db. For an RPM distribution on Linux or binary distribution on Windows, help table setup occurs as part of the MySQL installation process.

If you upgrade MySQL using a binary distribution, the help tables are not upgraded automatically, but you can upgrade them manually. Locate the fill_help_tables.sql file in the share or share/mysql directory. Change location into that directory and process the file with the mysql client as follows:

shell> mysql -u root mysql < fill_help_tables.sql

You can also obtain the latest fill_help_tables.sql at any time to upgrade your help tables. Download the proper file for your version of MySQL from http://dev.mysql.com/doc/index-other.html. After downloading and uncompressing the file, process it with mysql as described previously.

If you are working with Bazaar and a MySQL development source tree, you will need to download the fill_help_tables.sql file because the tree contains only a “stub” version.