forcing mysql client to use TCP socket?

[Murad Nayal]

Hello,

how can I force mysql interactive client (actually the client library as
well) to use a TCP port on the local host

if I do:

mysql -h localhost -u user -p --port=2000

I get: 

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

what might be a problem is: it seems, for reasons I don't entirely
understand possibly related to the network configuration on this node, I
need to use the name 'localhost' rather than the actual name of the
node!

thanks in advance for the help

Murad