Have you ever pulled your hair out trying to read excessively long query results that wrap onto multiple lines in the mysql command-line program? This happens to me about once a week, so today I went hunting for a better way. Turns out it's super easy and incredibly useful!

Here's an example of what this might look like on your screen:

 mysql> SELECT * FROM customers;
 +-------------+------------+---------------------+-------+----
 --------+-----------+------------------------+-----------+----
 ----------+-------+----------+-------------+---------------+--
 ------------+ | customer_id | address_id | stamp
 | title | first_name | last_name | address                |
 address_2 | city         | state | province | postal_code |
 country       | phone_number |
 +-------------+------------+---------------------+-------+----
 --------+-----------+------------------------+-----------+----
 ----------+-------+----------+-------------+---------------+--
 ------------+ |           1 |          1 | 2008-12-04 12:00:00
 | Mr.   | Ben        | Rothe     | 8555 Cedar Place Drive |
 Suite 114 | Indianapolis | IN    |          | 46240       |
 United States | 317-251-6744 |
 +-------------+------------+---------------------+-------+----
 --------+-----------+------------------------+-----------+----
 ----------+-------+----------+-------------+---------------+--
 ------------+
 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
 

To output this result set vertically, just end your query with \G instead of a ; character.

 mysql> SELECT * FROM customers\G
 *************************** 1. row ***************************
 customer_id: 1
 address_id: 1
 stamp: 2008-11-24 15:41:25
 title: Mr.
 first_name: Ben
 last_name: Rothe
 address: 8555 Cedar Place Drive
 address_2: Suite 114
 city: Indianapolis
 state: IN
 province:
 postal_code: 46240
 country: United States
 phone_number: 317-251-6744
 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
 

How cool is that?!?