title: MySQL: how not to repeat the column_definition for each column when adding multiple columns
body: <p>I am running mysql 5.0. How do I write an SQL query to add new coloumns (all of the same type) to a table without repeating the coloumn type for each of them. </p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysql --user=db_user --password=db_pwd -e "ALTER TABLE db_name.db_table \
  ADD ( \
  new_column_1 TEXT NOT NULL,
  new_column_2 TEXT NOT NULL)"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In the example above the common type is <code>'TEXT NOT NULL'</code>. Note that the actual scenario has a lot more coloumns and not just 2 as specified in the example. </p>
  
  <p>Summarily, is there a way to 'factorize' the common type?</p>