ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'

Question

I installed MySQL on Mac OS X Mountain Lion with homebrew install mysql, but when I tried mysql -u root I got the following error:

Answer 1

If you are on OSX and have XAMPP,then please follow these steps:

Thanks to Jackstine's answer, I was able to do the following:

$ cat ~/.my.cnf

[mysql]

# CLIENT #
port                           = 3306
socket                         = /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock

I hope this helps me again when I forget, in the future!