Hello!
I am running Slackware Linux 11.0 with kernel 2.6.18 and mysql-5.0.24a-i486-1. The client group of my.cnf is:

[client]
password = *******
port = 3306
socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql.sock
loose-local-infile=1

Here I added the last line to enable loading local files into tables. Now everything seems to work fine. Still, I get a strange announcement when I run mysqladmin or mysqlshow:

unknown variable 'loose-local-infile=1'

If I remove the "loose-local-infile=1" line from the [client] group of my.cnf, this message does not appear, but I cannot load files into the database. Now I have that line there and everything works fine. The only issue is that annoying message:
unknown variable 'loose-local-infile=1'
that appears whenever I run mysqladmin or mysqlshow.
Do you have any idea how I could get rid of this and whether it is harmful?
Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Regards,
Martin

According to MySQL, this is compiled to be enabled by default. Have you tried to just enable it in the /etc/rc.d/rc.mysqld file by passing this option there?

--local-infile=1

The mysql package that comes by default with Slackware 11.0 obviously does not contain that option compiled. I tried what you suggested, hashed the "loose-local-infile" in my.cnf and added "--local-infile=1" as you suggested as a parameter to mysqld_safe. There was no more "unknown variable: loose-local-infile" message, but I was unable to load text files into the database either. I then unhashed the line in my.cnf, and restarted mysql. This time I could load text files, but the message again appeared.