I have created a database in mysql with a couple of tables. When I goto grant privileges to a user I get an error. Here is what I did.

mysql> grant select, insert, update, delete
-> on mail.*
-> to mail@localhost indentitfied by 'password';

Then I get an error messege saying :
ERROR 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax near "indentified by 'password' ' at line 3

I got this out of a book that I have been reading. I also looked it up on google. What is the propper syntax? Thanks

mysql> grant select, insert, update, delete on mail.* to mail@localhost identified by 'password';

I had the same problem here is what I figured out. First here is the line that worked grant select, insert, update, delete, index, alter, create, drop on database.* to user identified by 'password'; Where database is the database and you do need the .* after it, user is the user name and 'password' is the password you want between the ' '. If you still get the same log into the database as root with (you also have to bee root of the database for the grant command) by typing the following:

/usr$ mysql -u root -p
and then enter the password you have for root then do the following

mysql> use mysql;
mysql> select * from user;

Then look for the user you are trying to grant the privileges to or a user with the same name as the database and run the following to delete the user(s)

mysql> delete from user where User=' ';
put the user name between the ' '
you should also run if with no space between ' ' to remove the ability to log on anonymously.


I hope this helps, my problem was that I had a user with the same name as the database and the user was trying to grant already existed. It may have been just because I had a user with the same name as the database but I don't know because I removed them both before I tried again.