Explainify is a pager program for the MySQL Client that attempts to make EXPLAIN and other output to look nicer.
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("abc",n) FROM cte;
+------+-----------------+
| n | REPEAT("abc",n) |
+------+-----------------+
| 1 | abc |
| 2 | abcabc |
| 3 | abcabcabc |
| 4 | abcabcabcabc |
| 5 | abcabcabcabcabc |
+------+-----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
becomes
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("abc",n) FROM cte;
╭──────┬─────────────────╮
│ n │ REPEAT("abc",n) │
├──────┼─────────────────┤
│ 1 │ abc │
│ 2 │ abcabc │
│ 3 │ abcabcabc │
│ 4 │ abcabcabcabc │
│ 5 │ abcabcabcabcabc │
╰──────┴─────────────────╯
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
This also attempts to fix the issue that wide characters like emojis mess up the layout:
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("😀",n) FROM cte;
+------+----------------------+
| n | REPEAT("?",n) |
+------+----------------------+
| 1 | 😀 |
| 2 | 😀😀 |
| 3 | 😀😀😀 |
| 4 | 😀😀😀😀 |
| 5 | 😀😀😀😀😀 |
+------+----------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("😀",n) FROM cte;
╭──────┬──────────────────────╮
│ n │ REPEAT("?",n) │
├──────┼──────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ 😀 │
│ 2 │ 😀😀 │
│ 3 │ 😀😀😀 │
│ 4 │ 😀😀😀😀 │
│ 5 │ 😀😀😀😀😀 │
╰──────┴──────────────────────╯
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Note that I tested this with gnome-terminal and there it looks better than how GitHub renders Markdown.
This makes it easy to copy-paste tables into markdown documentation.
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("abc",n) FROM cte;
+------+-----------------+
| n | REPEAT("abc",n) |
+------+-----------------+
| 1 | abc |
| 2 | abcabc |
| 3 | abcabcabc |
| 4 | abcabcabcabc |
| 5 | abcabcabcabcabc |
+------+-----------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
becomes
mysql> WITH RECURSIVE cte(n) AS (SELECT 1 n UNION ALL SELECT n+1 FROM cte WHERE n<5) SELECT n, REPEAT("abc",n) FROM cte;
| n | REPEAT("abc",n) |
|------|-----------------|
| 1 | abc |
| 2 | abcabc |
| 3 | abcabcabc |
| 4 | abcabcabcabc |
| 5 | abcabcabcabcabc |
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
And rendered this looks like:
| n | REPEAT("abc",n) |
|---|---|
| 1 | abc |
| 2 | abcabc |
| 3 | abcabcabc |
| 4 | abcabcabcabc |
| 5 | abcabcabcabcabc |
mysql> EXPLAIN FORMAT=json SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
EXPLAIN: {
"query_block": {
"union_result": {
"using_temporary_table": false,
"query_specifications": [
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 1,
"message": "No tables used"
}
},
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 2,
"message": "No tables used"
}
},
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 3,
"message": "No tables used"
}
}
]
}
}
}
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.01 sec)
mysql> EXPLAIN FORMAT=json SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3;
EXPLAIN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{
"query_block": {
"union_result": {
"using_temporary_table": false,
"query_specifications": [
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 1,
"message": "No tables used"
}
},
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 2,
"message": "No tables used"
}
},
{
"dependent": false,
"cacheable": true,
"query_block": {
"select_id": 3,
"message": "No tables used"
}
}
]
}
}
}
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.00 sec)
Note that EXPLAIN FORMAT=JSON... normally requires the use of \G or --auto-vertical-output as the default table based format looks even worse as it wasn't made for single row, single column, multi line output.
And it does syntax highlighting for JSON explain:
And it supports multiple themes:
And for the TREE format:
mysql> EXPLAIN FORMAT=tree SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
EXPLAIN: -> Append (cost=0..0 rows=3)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> EXPLAIN FORMAT=tree SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3;
EXPLAIN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-> Append (cost=0..0 rows=3)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Stream results (cost=0..0 rows=1)
-> Rows fetched before execution (cost=0..0 rows=1)
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
When starting the MySQL Client:
mysql --pager=/path/to/explainify
When already in the MySQL Client:
pager /path/to/explainify
To disable:
nopager
Options:
Usage of explainify:
-format string
output format: plain, markdown or unicode (default "unicode")
-theme string
chroma syntax highlighting theme (default "monokailight")
The explainify binary can be build by checking out this repository and running go build.
% git clone https://github.com/dveeden/explainify.git
Cloning into 'explainify'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 17, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (17/17), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (13/13), done.
remote: Total 17 (delta 4), reused 16 (delta 3), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (17/17), 142.67 KiB | 2.80 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (4/4), done.
% cd explainify
% go build
go: downloading github.com/alecthomas/chroma/v2 v2.15.0
go: downloading golang.org/x/text v0.22.0
go: downloading github.com/dlclark/regexp2 v1.11.5
dveeden@nas2:~/explainify % ./explainify -h
Usage of ./explainify:
-format string
output format: plain, markdown or unicode (default "unicode")
-theme string
chroma syntax highlighting theme (default "monokailight")