May I introduce you to the family of SHOW commands?
SHOW DATABASES - lists all databases on a server
SHOW TABLES - lists all tables within your current database
SHOW CREATE TABLE xxxxx - returns a table containing a SQL statement you
could use to recreate the table xxxxx if you needed to (including all
indexes and constraints)
SHOW COLUMNS FROM xxxxx - returns a table similar to
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.columns but only for the table you specify.
and the list goes on and on: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/SHOW.html
Alas, the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views are not production ready. They are
being added to MySQL with the 5.x+ branch of development, which is not
yet stable. Be patient, many good things are coming with v5.
Shawn Green
Database Administrator
Unimin Corporation - Spruce Pine
"Dave Merrill" <dmerrill@stripped> wrote on 01/12/2005 04:07:16 PM:
> Hi, mysql newb here, coming mostly from ms sql server.
>
> I'm wondering how to find out basic info (type, str length, column name
if
> getting all cols from a list of tables, etc), about a set of columns
from a
> number of different tables. I'm also interested in getting a list of the
> tables in a db.
>
> SQL Server has a pair of views (information_schema.tables and
> information_schema.columns) that were useful for this kind of thing.
Since
> they're normal views, you can restrict the tables or cols found by
table,
> column, type, etc, and retrieve only the info you want about them;
anything
> that works in a std query works here.
>
> The only way I know of to get this kind of metadata from mysql is
explain,
> which appears to only return a fixed set of info about all the columns
in a
> single table. Is there any way to get:
>
> - A list of tables in a db
> - Column info for more than one table at once
> - Only certain info about these cols (name and type only, say)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dave Merrill
>
>
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