MySQL and Databases - Database Design Manual: Using MySQL for Windows - page 8

Figure 1.5 An output from a query.

The query is made up of a series of words and values terminated with a semicolon. The
semicolon alerts the DBMS that it has come to the end of the query. You can normally send
multiple queries to the database server by separating each one with a semicolon. In the
basic command line MySQL client, the query is only executed once the semicolon is
entered.
This query when sent to the DBMS, will cause it to examine the log table, work out all of
the rows and columns in that table, and output them to the user, as shown in Figure 1.5.
Figure 1.5 also shows the output from a query. You will notice that the server has neatly
tabulated the output into columns and rows for us, and even given a summary of how long
the query took and how many rows it returned. The output in the figure is purely text based,
as most of the communication between client and server is in this form. You can obtain
graphical clients, however, which give you more control over the output. Where applicable,
most of the examples within this topic will be using a graphical client.