'The result has no columns or the command has no result'.
I agree that a better phrasing may be possible.
I'm hesitating about this one because word "result" appears twice, but this is the underlying issue, maybe there is no result, or there is a result but it is empty... so somehow this might be unavoidable. On rereading it, I think that your sentence is better balance as the two cases have both a verb and a structured the same, so it seems better.
Another terser version could be: 'No or empty result' or 'Empty or no result', but maybe it is too terse.
I didn't read the patch though, just the email so that might not make sense in context.
