From: Martin Kleppmann <mk428@cam.ac.uk>
Subject: 2+2
Date: 18 May 2005 at 15:04:56 BST
To: Timothy Griffin <Timothy.Griffin@cl.cam.ac.uk>

The most straightforward solution:

mysql> select 2+2;
+-----+
| 2+2 |
+-----+
|   4 |
+-----+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)


The most obfuscated solution:

mysql> create table x select '+' as a union select '='; select count(if(
y.a=z.a,y.a,w.a))as'',min(y.a)as'',count(if(y.a!=z.a, z.a,w.a))as'',max(
z.a)as'',count(*)as''from x y,x z left join x w on w.a!=y.a and y.a=w.a;
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

+---+------+---+------+---+
|   |      |   |      |   |
+---+------+---+------+---+
| 2 | +    | 2 | =    | 4 |
+---+------+---+------+---+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)