MySQL Bugs: #82305: MySQL Shell --password option help is wrong

Bug #82305	MySQL Shell --password option help is wrong
Submitted:	21 Jul 2016 11:43	Modified:	14 Sep 2018 11:21
Reporter:	David Moss	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Document Store: MySQL Shell	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	1.0.4	OS:	Any
Assigned to:	Juan Rene Ramirez Monarrez	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
If you look at this page:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/mysql-shell-connections.html

there is this:
The --password parameter indicates the user should connect without a password.

For consistency, the following aliases are supported for some parameters:

    --user is equivalent to --dbuser

    --password is equivalent to --dbpassword

    --database is equivalent to --schema
-----

Notice there are 2 definitions of what --password does. AFAIR we discussed this a few times, and this is true:

The --password parameter indicates the user should connect without a password.

And this is not true:
    --password is equivalent to --dbpassword

Note that the above sentence is still used when running mysqlsh --help, so if my understanding is correct this needs fixing in the Shell's help output as well.

How to repeat:
Try and connect Shell to a MySQL Server using a user without a password and not using the --password CLI option, it should fail.

Check the docs and the help output, verify that this statement:
--password is equivalent to --dbpassword

is untrue.

Suggested fix:
Change the help output.
Ideally rename the CLI option. In my opinion this is a pretty confusing option, and if it were me I'd rename it --no-password.

Hello David Moss,

Thank you for the report and feedback!

Thanks,
Umesh

Posted by developer:
 
MySQL Shell 1.0.10
MySQL Shell 8.0.3

Current help for this password related topic:

 --dbpassword=name        Password to use when connecting to server
  -p, --password=name      An alias for dbpassword.
  -p                       Request password prompt to set the password

We might be in the need to add the --no-password parameter as suggested, or to check the help to update something related to specify a password-less account use the --password= option and do not specify a password.

Posted by developer:
 
Help text update, no changelog entry needed - closing.