MacOSX homebrew mysql root password

Question

For some reason MySQL stopped giving access for root. Uninstalled and reinstalled with Homebrew. Fresh install, fresh tables but when I enter

mysql -u root -         


        

Answer 1

I've just noticed something common to most of the answers here, and confirmed on my fresh install. It's actually obvious if you look at the recommendations to run mysqladmin -u root without -p.

There is no password.

Brew sets mysql up with just a root user and no password at all. This makes sense, I guess, but the post-install Caveats don't mention it at all.