How can I display long records in mysql without wrapping?

Often times, you need to view a record with lots of fields, and the default mysql horizontal output makes it hard to see what's in each field.

To produce a "vertical" output, add \G to the end of your query (before the ;).  You might also specify the --vertical option when starting up mysql client.  When adding \G to the query, you can drop the ; at the end (or it will produce an "empty query" error).

Example:

select * from employees where id = 5 \G