Disabling foreign key checks on the command line

You can also use --init-command parameter of mysql command.

I.e.: mysql --init-command="SET SESSION FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;" ...

MySQL 5.5 Documentation - mysql options

You can do this by concatenating the string to the file inline. I'm sure there's an easier way to concatenate strings and files, but it works.

cat <(echo "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;") imports.sql | mysql

I don't think you need to set it back to 1 since it's just one session.

Login to mysql command line:

mysql -u <username> -p -h <host_name or ip> Then run

1 SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;

2.use database <database_name>

3 SOURCE /pathToFile/backup.sql;

4 SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;

Just another one to do the same:

{ echo "SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;" ; cat imports.sql ; } | mysql