How can I suppress column header output for a single SQL statement?

Question

I'm executing some SQL statements in batch (using the mysql command-line binary). I want one of my several SELECT statements to not print the column headers, just the selected records. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Invoke mysql with the -N (the alias for -N is --skip-column-names) option:

mysql -N ...
use testdb;
select * from names;

+------+-------+
|    1 | pete  |
|    2 | john  |
|    3 | mike  |
+------+-------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Credit to ErichBSchulz for pointing out the -N alias.

To remove the grid (the vertical and horizontal lines) around the results use -s (--silent). Columns are separated with a TAB character.

mysql -s ...
use testdb;
select * from names;

id  name
1   pete
2   john
3   mike

To output the data with no headers and no grid just use both -s and -N.

mysql -sN ...

Answer 2

You can fake it like this:

-- with column headings 
select column1, column2 from some_table;

-- without column headings
select column1 as '', column2 as '' from some_table;