MySQL Cookbook

Making Long Output Lines More Readable

Problem

The output lines from a query are too long. They wrap around and make a mess of your screen.

Solution

Use vertical output format.

Discussion

Some queries generate output lines that are so long they take up more than one line on your terminal, which can make query results difficult to read. Here is an example that shows what excessively long query output lines might look like on your screen:^[10]

mysql> SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM limbs;
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+-------------------------
--------+
| Field | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra | Privileges
        |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+-------------------------
--------+
| thing | varchar(20) | YES  |     | NULL    |       | select,insert,update,ref
erences |
| legs  | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       | select,insert,update,ref
erences |
| arms  | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       | select,insert,update,ref
erences |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+-------------------------
--------+

An alternative is to generate “vertical” output with each column value on a separate line. This is done by terminating a query with \G rather than with a ; character or with \g. Here’s what the result from the preceding query looks like when displayed using vertical format:

mysql> SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM limbs\G *************************** 1. row *************************** Field: thing Type: varchar(20) Null: YES Key: Default: NULL Extra: Privileges: select,insert,update,references ...