Provided by: percona-toolkit_3.2.1-1_all 
NAME
pt-find - Find MySQL tables and execute actions, like GNU find.
SYNOPSIS
Usage: pt-find [OPTIONS] [DATABASES]
pt-find searches for MySQL tables and executes actions, like GNU find. The default action is to print
the database and table name.
Find all tables created more than a day ago, which use the MyISAM engine, and print their names:
pt-find --ctime +1 --engine MyISAM
Find InnoDB tables and convert them to MyISAM:
pt-find --engine InnoDB --exec "ALTER TABLE %D.%N ENGINE=MyISAM"
Find tables created by a process that no longer exists, following the name_sid_pid naming convention, and
remove them.
pt-find --connection-id '\D_\d+_(\d+)$' --server-id '\D_(\d+)_\d+$' --exec-plus "DROP TABLE %s"
Find empty tables in the test and junk databases, and delete them:
pt-find --empty junk test --exec-plus "DROP TABLE %s"
Find tables more than five gigabytes in total size:
pt-find --tablesize +5G
Find all tables and print their total data and index size, and sort largest tables first (sort is a
different program, by the way).
pt-find --printf "%T\t%D.%N\n" | sort -rn
As above, but this time, insert the data back into the database for posterity:
pt-find --noquote --exec "INSERT INTO sysdata.tblsize(db, tbl, size) VALUES('%D', '%N', %T)"
RISKS
Percona Toolkit is mature, proven in the real world, and well tested, but all database tools can pose a
risk to the system and the database server. Before using this tool, please:
• Read the tool's documentation
• Review the tool's known "BUGS"
• Test the tool on a non-production server
• Backup your production server and verify the backups
DESCRIPTION
pt-find looks for MySQL tables that pass the tests you specify, and executes the actions you specify.
The default action is to print the database and table name to STDOUT.
pt-find is simpler than GNU find. It doesn't allow you to specify complicated expressions on the command
line.
pt-find uses SHOW TABLES when possible, and SHOW TABLE STATUS when needed.
OPTION TYPES
There are three types of options: normal options, which determine some behavior or setting; tests, which
determine whether a table should be included in the list of tables found; and actions, which do something
to the tables pt-find finds.
pt-find uses standard Getopt::Long option parsing, so you should use double dashes in front of long
option names, unlike GNU find.
OPTIONS
This tool accepts additional command-line arguments. Refer to the "SYNOPSIS" and usage information for
details.
--ask-pass
Prompt for a password when connecting to MySQL.
--case-insensitive
Specifies that all regular expression searches are case-insensitive.
--charset
short form: -A; type: string
Default character set. If the value is utf8, sets Perl's binmode on STDOUT to utf8, passes the
mysql_enable_utf8 option to DBD::mysql, and runs SET NAMES UTF8 after connecting to MySQL. Any other
value sets binmode on STDOUT without the utf8 layer, and runs SET NAMES after connecting to MySQL.
--config
type: Array
Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be the first option on the
command line.
--database
short form: -D; type: string
Connect to this database.
--day-start
Measure times (for "--mmin", etc) from the beginning of today rather than from the current time.
--defaults-file
short form: -F; type: string
Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute pathname.
--help
Show help and exit.
--host
short form: -h; type: string
Connect to host.
--or
Combine tests with OR, not AND.
By default, tests are evaluated as though there were an AND between them. This option switches it to
OR.
Option parsing is not implemented by pt-find itself, so you cannot specify complicated expressions
with parentheses and mixtures of OR and AND.
--password
short form: -p; type: string
Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped with a backslash:
"exam\,ple"
--pid
type: string
Create the given PID file. The tool won't start if the PID file already exists and the PID it
contains is different than the current PID. However, if the PID file exists and the PID it contains
is no longer running, the tool will overwrite the PID file with the current PID. The PID file is
removed automatically when the tool exits.
--port
short form: -P; type: int
Port number to use for connection.
--[no]quote
default: yes
Quotes MySQL identifier names with MySQL's standard backtick character.
Quoting happens after tests are run, and before actions are run.
--set-vars
type: Array
Set the MySQL variables in this comma-separated list of "variable=value" pairs.
By default, the tool sets:
wait_timeout=10000
Variables specified on the command line override these defaults. For example, specifying "--set-vars
wait_timeout=500" overrides the defaultvalue of 10000.
The tool prints a warning and continues if a variable cannot be set.
--socket
short form: -S; type: string
Socket file to use for connection.
--user
short form: -u; type: string
User for login if not current user.
--version
Show version and exit.
--[no]version-check
default: yes
Check for the latest version of Percona Toolkit, MySQL, and other programs.
This is a standard "check for updates automatically" feature, with two additional features. First,
the tool checks its own version and also the versions of the following software: operating system,
Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM), MySQL, Perl, MySQL driver for Perl (DBD::mysql), and Percona
Toolkit. Second, it checks for and warns about versions with known problems. For example, MySQL
5.5.25 had a critical bug and was re-released as 5.5.25a.
A secure connection to Percona’s Version Check database server is done to perform these checks. Each
request is logged by the server, including software version numbers and unique ID of the checked
system. The ID is generated by the Percona Toolkit installation script or when the Version Check
database call is done for the first time.
Any updates or known problems are printed to STDOUT before the tool's normal output. This feature
should never interfere with the normal operation of the tool.
For more information, visit <https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/LATEST/version-check.html>.
TESTS
Most tests check some criterion against a column of SHOW TABLE STATUS output. Numeric arguments can be
specified as +n for greater than n, -n for less than n, and n for exactly n. All numeric options can
take an optional suffix multiplier of k, M or G (1_024, 1_048_576, and 1_073_741_824 respectively). All
patterns are Perl regular expressions (see 'man perlre') unless specified as SQL LIKE patterns.
Dates and times are all measured relative to the same instant, when pt-find first asks the database
server what time it is. All date and time manipulation is done in SQL, so if you say to find tables
modified 5 days ago, that translates to SELECT DATE_SUB(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL 5 DAY). If you
specify "--day-start", if course it's relative to CURRENT_DATE instead.
However, table sizes and other metrics are not consistent at an instant in time. It can take some time
for MySQL to process all the SHOW queries, and pt-find can't do anything about that. These measurements
are as of the time they're taken.
If you need some test that's not in this list, file a bug report and I'll enhance pt-find for you. It's
really easy.
--autoinc
type: string; group: Tests
Table's next AUTO_INCREMENT is n. This tests the Auto_increment column.
--avgrowlen
type: size; group: Tests
Table avg row len is n bytes. This tests the Avg_row_length column. The specified size can be
"NULL" to test where Avg_row_length IS NULL.
--checksum
type: string; group: Tests
Table checksum is n. This tests the Checksum column.
--cmin
type: size; group: Tests
Table was created n minutes ago. This tests the Create_time column.
--collation
type: string; group: Tests
Table collation matches pattern. This tests the Collation column.
--column-name
type: string; group: Tests
A column name in the table matches pattern.
--column-type
type: string; group: Tests
A column in the table matches this type (case-insensitive).
Examples of types are: varchar, char, int, smallint, bigint, decimal, year, timestamp, text, enum.
--comment
type: string; group: Tests
Table comment matches pattern. This tests the Comment column.
--connection-id
type: string; group: Tests
Table name has nonexistent MySQL connection ID. This tests the table name for a pattern. The
argument to this test must be a Perl regular expression that captures digits like this: (\d+). If
the table name matches the pattern, these captured digits are taken to be the MySQL connection ID of
some process. If the connection doesn't exist according to SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST, the test returns
true. If the connection ID is greater than pt-find's own connection ID, the test returns false for
safety.
Why would you want to do this? If you use MySQL statement-based replication, you probably know the
trouble temporary tables can cause. You might choose to work around this by creating real tables
with unique names, instead of temporary tables. One way to do this is to append your connection ID
to the end of the table, thusly: scratch_table_12345. This assures the table name is unique and lets
you have a way to find which connection it was associated with. And perhaps most importantly, if the
connection no longer exists, you can assume the connection died without cleaning up its tables, and
this table is a candidate for removal.
This is how I manage scratch tables, and that's why I included this test in pt-find.
The argument I use to "--connection-id" is "\D_(\d+)$". That finds tables with a series of numbers
at the end, preceded by an underscore and some non-number character (the latter criterion prevents me
from examining tables with a date at the end, which people tend to do: baron_scratch_2007_05_07 for
example). It's better to keep the scratch tables separate of course.
If you do this, make sure the user pt-find runs as has the PROCESS privilege! Otherwise it will only
see connections from the same user, and might think some tables are ready to remove when they're
still in use. For safety, pt-find checks this for you.
See also "--server-id".
--createopts
type: string; group: Tests
Table create option matches pattern. This tests the Create_options column.
--ctime
type: size; group: Tests
Table was created n days ago. This tests the Create_time column.
--datafree
type: size; group: Tests
Table has n bytes of free space. This tests the Data_free column. The specified size can be "NULL"
to test where Data_free IS NULL.
--datasize
type: size; group: Tests
Table data uses n bytes of space. This tests the Data_length column. The specified size can be
"NULL" to test where Data_length IS NULL.
Note: Starting from MySQL 8.0, empty tables return 0 instead of NULL.
--dblike
type: string; group: Tests
Database name matches SQL LIKE pattern.
--dbregex
type: string; group: Tests
Database name matches this pattern.
--empty
group: Tests
Table has no rows. This tests the Rows column.
--engine
type: string; group: Tests
Table storage engine matches this pattern. This tests the Engine column, or in earlier versions of
MySQL, the Type column.
--function
type: string; group: Tests
Function definition matches pattern.
--indexsize
type: size; group: Tests
Table indexes use n bytes of space. This tests the Index_length column. The specified size can be
"NULL" to test where Index_length IS NULL.
--kmin
type: size; group: Tests
Table was checked n minutes ago. This tests the Check_time column.
--ktime
type: size; group: Tests
Table was checked n days ago. This tests the Check_time column.
--mmin
type: size; group: Tests
Table was last modified n minutes ago. This tests the Update_time column.
--mtime
type: size; group: Tests
Table was last modified n days ago. This tests the Update_time column.
--procedure
type: string; group: Tests
Procedure definition matches pattern.
--rowformat
type: string; group: Tests
Table row format matches pattern. This tests the Row_format column.
--rows
type: size; group: Tests
Table has n rows. This tests the Rows column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Rows
IS NULL.
--server-id
type: string; group: Tests
Table name contains the server ID. If you create temporary tables with the naming convention
explained in "--connection-id", but also add the server ID of the server on which the tables are
created, then you can use this pattern match to ensure tables are dropped only on the server they're
created on. This prevents a table from being accidentally dropped on a slave while it's in use
(provided that your server IDs are all unique, which they should be for replication to work).
For example, on the master (server ID 22) you create a table called scratch_table_22_12345. If you
see this table on the slave (server ID 23), you might think it can be dropped safely if there's no
such connection 12345. But if you also force the name to match the server ID with "--server-id
'\D_(\d+)_\d+$'", the table won't be dropped on the slave.
--tablesize
type: size; group: Tests
Table uses n bytes of space. This tests the sum of the Data_length and Index_length columns.
--tbllike
type: string; group: Tests
Table name matches SQL LIKE pattern.
--tblregex
type: string; group: Tests
Table name matches this pattern.
--tblversion
type: size; group: Tests
Table version is n. This tests the Version column.
--trigger
type: string; group: Tests
Trigger action statement matches pattern.
--trigger-table
type: string; group: Tests
"--trigger" is defined on table matching pattern.
--view
type: string; group: Tests
CREATE VIEW matches this pattern.
ACTIONS
The "--exec-plus" action happens after everything else, but otherwise actions happen in an indeterminate
order. If you need determinism, file a bug report and I'll add this feature.
--exec
type: string; group: Actions
Execute this SQL with each item found. The SQL can contain escapes and formatting directives (see
"--printf").
--exec-dsn
type: string; group: Actions
Specify a DSN in key-value format to use when executing SQL with "--exec" and "--exec-plus". Any
values not specified are inherited from command-line arguments.
--exec-plus
type: string; group: Actions
Execute this SQL with all items at once. This option is unlike "--exec". There are no escaping or
formatting directives; there is only one special placeholder for the list of database and table
names, %s. The list of tables found will be joined together with commas and substituted wherever you
place %s.
You might use this, for example, to drop all the tables you found:
DROP TABLE %s
This is sort of like GNU find's "-exec command {} +" syntax. Only it's not totally cryptic. And it
doesn't require me to write a command-line parser.
--print
group: Actions
Print the database and table name, followed by a newline. This is the default action if no other
action is specified.
--printf
type: string; group: Actions
Print format on the standard output, interpreting '\' escapes and '%' directives. Escapes are
backslashed characters, like \n and \t. Perl interprets these, so you can use any escapes Perl knows
about. Directives are replaced by %s, and as of this writing, you can't add any special formatting
instructions, like field widths or alignment (though I'm musing over ways to do that).
Here is a list of the directives. Note that most of them simply come from columns of SHOW TABLE
STATUS. If the column is NULL or doesn't exist, you get an empty string in the output. A %
character followed by any character not in the following list is discarded (but the other character
is printed).
CHAR DATA SOURCE NOTES
---- ------------------ ------------------------------------------
a Auto_increment
A Avg_row_length
c Checksum
C Create_time
D Database The database name in which the table lives
d Data_length
E Engine In older versions of MySQL, this is Type
F Data_free
f Innodb_free Parsed from the Comment field
I Index_length
K Check_time
L Collation
M Max_data_length
N Name
O Comment
P Create_options
R Row_format
S Rows
T Table_length Data_length+Index_length
U Update_time
V Version
DSN OPTIONS
These DSN options are used to create a DSN. Each option is given like "option=value". The options are
case-sensitive, so P and p are not the same option. There cannot be whitespace before or after the "="
and if the value contains whitespace it must be quoted. DSN options are comma-separated. See the
percona-toolkit manpage for full details.
• A
dsn: charset; copy: yes
Default character set.
• D
dsn: database; copy: yes
Default database.
• F
dsn: mysql_read_default_file; copy: yes
Only read default options from the given file
• h
dsn: host; copy: yes
Connect to host.
• p
dsn: password; copy: yes
Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped with a backslash:
"exam\,ple"
• P
dsn: port; copy: yes
Port number to use for connection.
• S
dsn: mysql_socket; copy: yes
Socket file to use for connection.
• u
dsn: user; copy: yes
User for login if not current user.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable "PTDEBUG" enables verbose debugging output to STDERR. To enable debugging and
capture all output to a file, run the tool like:
PTDEBUG=1 pt-find ... > FILE 2>&1
Be careful: debugging output is voluminous and can generate several megabytes of output.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
You need Perl, DBI, DBD::mysql, and some core packages that ought to be installed in any reasonably new
version of Perl.
BUGS
For a list of known bugs, see <http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-find>.
Please report bugs at <https://jira.percona.com/projects/PT>. Include the following information in your
bug report:
• Complete command-line used to run the tool
• Tool "--version"
• MySQL version of all servers involved
• Output from the tool including STDERR
• Input files (log/dump/config files, etc.)
If possible, include debugging output by running the tool with "PTDEBUG"; see "ENVIRONMENT".
DOWNLOADING
Visit <http://www.percona.com/software/percona-toolkit/> to download the latest release of Percona
Toolkit. Or, get the latest release from the command line:
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.tar.gz
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.rpm
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.deb
You can also get individual tools from the latest release:
wget percona.com/get/TOOL
Replace "TOOL" with the name of any tool.
AUTHORS
Baron Schwartz
ABOUT PERCONA TOOLKIT
This tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line tools for MySQL developed by
Percona. Percona Toolkit was forked from two projects in June, 2011: Maatkit and Aspersa. Those
projects were created by Baron Schwartz and primarily developed by him and Daniel Nichter. Visit
<http://www.percona.com/software/> to learn about other free, open-source software from Percona.
COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY
This program is copyright 2011-2018 Percona LLC and/or its affiliates, 2007-2011 Baron Schwartz.
THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT
LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2; OR the Perl Artistic
License. On UNIX and similar systems, you can issue `man perlgpl' or `man perlartistic' to read these
licenses.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write
to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.
VERSION
pt-find 3.2.1
POD ERRORS
Hey! The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:
Around line 4588:
Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Percona’s'. Assuming UTF-8
perl v5.30.3 2020-08-30 PT-FIND(1p)