Trying to follow the instructions here, https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Database_access#Slow_queries_and_the_query_... I do the following ina shell script, run from cronie:

echo "select /* SLOW_OK LIMIT:1800 */ 'pl.wikipedia', count(*), ..." | mysql ...

I run such queries for a large number of languages, and most of them run on time, and give good results. The string constant selected as the first column is to facilitate fault searching.

Yet, occasionally I receive an email from Query-Killer that says:

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Hello la2, a MySQL-query of yours was killed because you didn't mark it as SLOW_OK and it have run for 645 seconds which was longer than allowed. You can find the query below. Please have also a look at [1] to find information how you can avoid killings of your queries. Maybe you can optimze the query too? The replication lag at kill-time was 39s.

Sincerly, Query-Killer. This eMail was sent automaticaly, please don't reply.

select 'pl.wikipedia', count(*), ...

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As can be seen, the query in the e-mail has a double space after select but no comment. Somebody cut out the comment and my SLOW_OK was not respected. Is it the "mysql" command that does this? Is there a better way?