SHOW [{GLOBAL | SESSION}] VARIABLES
SHOW VARIABLES statement was added in version 2.0.1-beta to improve compatibility with 3rd party MySQL connectors and frameworks that automatically execute this statement.
In version 2.0.1-beta, it did nothing.
Starting from version 2.0.2-beta, it returns the current values of a few server-wide variables. Also, support for GLOBAL and SESSION clauses was added.
mysql> SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES; +----------------------+----------+ | Variable_name | Value | +----------------------+----------+ | autocommit | 1 | | collation_connection | libc_ci | | query_log_format | sphinxql | | log_level | info | +----------------------+----------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)