How to best display in Terminal a MySQL SELECT returning too many fields?

Question

I\'m using PuTTY to run:

mysql> SELECT * FROM sometable;

sometable has many fields and this results in many columns trying

Answer 1

You might also find this useful (non-Windows only):

mysql> pager less -SFX
mysql> SELECT * FROM sometable;

This will pipe the outut through the less command line tool which - with these parameters - will give you a tabular output that can be scrolled horizontally and vertically with the cursor keys.

Leave this view by hitting the q key, which will quit the less tool.