[support] drush sql-query returns nothing

[Tim Johnson]

I am using drush 5.8 on Mac OSX

drush sql-query returns nothing at all, can't see to get any
response whatsoever if I run (as example)
drush sql-query "show tables;" from sites/default

the only response I can get is if I run the command above from
above/outside the site root - and that is the "No database to
operate on." error..

could be a very handy feature of drush for me, but I'm clueless on
how to make it work and `drush help sql-query` doesn't provide me
with any clues as where to execute from...

TIA
-- 
Tim 
tim at tee jay forty nine dot com or akwebsoft dot com
http://www.akwebsoft.com, http://www.tj49.com