Preventing Query Output from Scrolling off the Screen
Problem
Query output zooms off the top of your screen before you can see it.
Solution
Tell mysql to display output a page at a time, or run mysql in a window that allows scrollback.
Discussion
If a query produces many lines of output, normally they just scroll
right off the top of the screen. To prevent this, tell
mysql to present output a page at a time by
specifying the
--pager option.[7]
--pager=program
tells mysql to use a specific program as your
pager:
% mysql --pager=/usr/bin/less--pager by itself tells
mysql to use your default pager, as specified in
your
PAGER
environment variable:
% mysql --pagerIf your PAGER variable isn’t set,
you must either define it or use the first form of the command to
specify a pager program explicitly. To define
PAGER, use the instructions in Recipe 1.9 for setting environment variables.
Within a mysql session, you can turn paging on and
off using \P and
\n. \P
without an argument enables paging using the program specified in
your PAGER variable. \P with an
argument enables paging using the argument as the name of the paging
program:
mysql>\PPAGER set to /bin/more mysql>\P /usr/bin/lessPAGER set to /usr/bin/less mysql>\nPAGER set to stdout
Output paging was introduced in MySQL 3.23.28.
Another way to deal with long result sets is to use a terminal program that allows you to scroll back through previous output. Programs such as xterm for the X Window System, Terminal for Mac OS X, MacSSH or ...