DESCRIBE

Syntax

{DESCRIBE | DESC} tbl_name [col_name | wild]

Description

DESCRIBE provides information about the columns in a table. It is a shortcut for SHOW COLUMNS FROM. These statements also display information for views.

col_name can be a column name, or a string containing the SQL "%" and "_" wildcard characters to obtain output only for the columns with names matching the string. There is no need to enclose the string within quotes unless it contains spaces or other special characters.

DESCRIBE city;
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type     | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Id         | int(11)  | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| Name       | char(35) | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| Country    | char(3)  | NO   | UNI |         |                |
| District   | char(20) | YES  | MUL |         |                |
| Population | int(11)  | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

The description for SHOW COLUMNS provides more information about the output columns.

See Also

• SHOW COLUMNS
• INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS Table
• mysqlshow