How to get database structure in MySQL via query

Is it possible to somehow get structure of MySQL database, or just some table with simple query?

Or is there another way, how can I do it?

I think that what you're after is DESCRIBE

DESCRIBE table;

You can also use SHOW TABLES

SHOW TABLES;

to get a list of the tables in your database.

To get the whole database structure as a set of CREATE TABLE statements, use mysqldump:

mysqldump database_name --compact --no-data

For single tables, add the table name after db name in mysqldump. You get the same results with SQL and SHOW CREATE TABLE:

SHOW CREATE TABLE table;

Or DESCRIBE if you prefer a column listing:

DESCRIBE table;

Take a look at the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES table. It contains metadata about all your tables.

Example:

SELECT * FROM `INFORMATION_SCHEMA`.`TABLES`
WHERE TABLE_NAME LIKE 'table1'

The advantage of this over other methods is that you can easily use queries like the one above as subqueries in your other queries.

using this:

SHOW CREATE TABLE `users`;

will give you the [DDL][1] for that table

DESCRIBE `users`

will list the columns in that table [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Definition_Language

SELECT *
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'test' AND TABLE_NAME ='products'; 

where Table_schema is database name

That's the SHOW CREATE TABLE query. You can query the SCHEMA TABLES, too.

SHOW CREATE TABLE YourTableName;

A variation of the first answer that I found useful

Open your command prompt and enter (you dont have to be logged into your mysql server)

mysqldump -hlocalhost -u<root> -p<password>  <dbname>  --compact --no-data > </path_to_mydump/>mysql.dmp

You can pick any one of the command below. All of them are more or less same:

SHOW CREATE TABLE TABLE_NAME;

DESC TABLE_NAME;

SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM TABLE_NAME; (for column properties)

EXPLAIN TABLE_NAME;

DESCRIBE TABLE_NAME;

In the following example,

> playground is the database name and equipment is the table name

Another way is using SHOW-COLUMNS:5.5 (available also for 5.5>)

$ mysql -uroot -p<password> -h<host> -P<port> -e \
    "SHOW COLUMNS FROM playground.equipment"

And the output:

mysql: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id    | int(11)     | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| type  | varchar(50) | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| quant | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| color | varchar(25) | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

One can also use mysqlshow-client (also available for 5.5>) like following:

$ mysqlshow -uroot -p<password> -h<host> -P<port> \
    playground equipment

And the output:

mysqlshow: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Database: playground  Table: equipment
+-------+-------------+-------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+---------------------------------+---------+
| Field | Type        | Collation         | Null | Key | Default | Extra          | Privileges                      | Comment |
+-------+-------------+-------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+---------------------------------+---------+
| id    | int(11)     |                   | NO   | PRI |         | auto_increment | select,insert,update,references |         |
| type  | varchar(50) | latin1_swedish_ci | YES  |     |         |                | select,insert,update,references |         |
| quant | int(11)     |                   | YES  |     |         |                | select,insert,update,references |         |
| color | varchar(25) | latin1_swedish_ci | YES  |     |         |                | select,insert,update,references |         |
+-------+-------------+-------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+---------------------------------+---------+

SELECT COLUMN_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA='bodb' AND TABLE_NAME='abc';

works for getting all column names

Nowadays, people use DESC instead of DESCRIPTION. For example:- DESC users;