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? When I am writing code to go with a certain MySQL query, I like to do a basic select statement to see the columns, and to perhaps see what data is available as a sample.  Sometimes, the table I would like to look at has no data, so I get a completely empty query.

Now, I know I can use something like "show create table [table_name]" to see the query; similarly, I am aware that it's possible to show the tables with a join statement, but the syntax is just complex enough that I don't always remember it, and I don't want to add complexity to every simply query I want to make, just to handle the occasional empty table.

Thus, I was wondering:  is there a setting in MySQL's client, that would allow me to see the column names every time, even when 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 ;