Is there a setting in MySQL that will allow you to see the columns of a table on a query, even if the table is empty?
This will always return a single row with NULL in all the columns of the table:

SELECT t.* 
FROM (SELECT 1) AS dummy 
  LEFT JOIN table_name AS t
    ON FALSE ;




This will always return a single row with NULL in all the columns of the table if the table is empty and real data from one row if it isn't empty:

SELECT t.* 
FROM (SELECT 1) AS dummy 
  LEFT JOIN table_name AS t
    ON TRUE
LIMIT 1 ;