The restriction on MySQL query having a notable list is that it can return, as a result, exactly one row but that result can contain multiple columns.
Example
mysql> Select 65/NULL,65+NULL,65*NULL,65-NULL,65%NULL; +------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+---------+ | 65/NULL | 65+NULL | 65*NULL | 65-NULL | 65%NULL | +------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+---------+ | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | +------------+--------------+-------------+-------------+---------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
In the above example, we can see that MySQL returns only one row with five columns, having the result of five expressions, as a result when we do not have any table list in the statement.