I am still a wee bit confussed, I have tried from the depot prompt
which is my rails application typing in:
mysql -u <root> -p deport_development <db/creare.sql

and I get ERROR 1045 <28000>: Access denied for user
'depot_development'@'localhost' <using password:NO>

depot_development is the name of the database in my sql it is not a
user. so I wonder what is the syntax of  the mysql  command, (which is
the client version of mysql not the server!?)
Also because I am using mysql server 4.1.16 the installed client
software will not connect to the server because when you try the server
will say authentication required.  some where around mysql 4.1.1, i do
not know exactly,  the mysql server will only allow the users that have
the older, shorter password type. This does seem crazzy but there is i
guess a senceible reason.... which I do not Know..
I tried writing a php script to simply connect to the database server
and select a database using root and its password, which is sheba and
it works just fine so I know that the  password that root currently has
works.
When you issue a mysql statement from the command line, what is the
syntax please, and what is the -u and -p you mention, if you type in as
I say above the mysql client does not ask for a password to connect to
the mysql server, but why not??

I do not think the problem is the old and new passwords that the mysql
server accepts I think it is to do with some other problem...
can you suggest some very simple mysql statements that I can try out
from the cmd prompt so I can see what works and what does not work?
Please suggest some articles I can read about how to run a mysql
command to actually run a flat file containing a bunch of mysql
statements for creating a simple table?
I know that I can create the table by typing the commands in to the
mysql query browser, because I have done this many times and it works
absolutely fine. I will keep an eye on this particular series of
postings tommarrow... and if in a few days the trail goes totally stone
cold may start a new topic... if that is not frowned upon!