Selecting Tabular or Tab-Delimited Query Output Format
1.22.1 Problem
mysql produces tabular output when you want tab-delimited output, or vice versa.
1.22.2 Solution
Select the desired format explicitly with the appropriate command-line option.
1.22.3 Discussion
When you use mysql non-interactively (such as to read queries from a file or to send results into a pipe), it writes output in tab-delimited format by default. Sometimes it's desirable to produce tabular output instead. For example, if you want to print or mail query results, tab-delimited output doesn't look very nice. Use the -t (or --table) option to produce tabular output that is more readable:
% mysql -t cookbook < inputfile | lpr % mysql -t cookbook < inputfile | mail paul
The inverse operation is to produce batch (tab-delimited) output in interactive mode. To do this, use -B or --batch.