I have the following SQL file:

SELECT 'N', '\N', CONCAT('\', 'N');

Executing it with mysql <example.sql outputs:

N   N  CONCAT('\', 'N')
N   \N \N

But executing via source in the mysql shell outputs:

+---+----+-------------------+
| N | N | CONCAT('\', 'N') |
+---+----+-------------------+
| N | N | N                |
+---+----+-------------------+

The salient difference in output is the N vs the \N. Is there a way to get these to be consistent (preferably having \N output N)?

What I’m really trying to do is have IFNULL output N for null values (and from what I’ve seen, using OUTFILE doesn’t work across remote connections).