How to Use DESCRIBE and SHOW COLUMNS Statement in MySQL

When working with databases in MySQL, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of the structure and attributes of the tables you are working with. The “DESCRIBE” and “SHOW COLUMNS” statements are powerful tools that allow you to retrieve detailed information about the columns within a table. By executing these statements, you can quickly access valuable metadata of a particular table in a database.

This guide will explain how to use the “DESCRIBE” and “SHOW COLUMNS” statements in MySQL.

How to Use DESCRIBE and SHOW COLUMNS Statement in MySQL?

To use the “DESCRIBE” and “SHOW COLUMNS” statements, first you just need to log in to the MySQL server. After the login, you can use the “DESCRIBE” or “SHOW COLUMNS” statements to get information about any particular table. The information will contain the following column:

Field: Column Name
Type: Data Type
Null: Nullability (whether the NULL value is allowed in that column or not)
Key: Key information (whether the column is a primary key, foreign key, or indexed)
Default: Default value
Extra: Extra information (such as auto-increment, unsigned, etc.)

How to Use DESCRIBE Statement in MySQL?

The “DESCRIBE” statement can be utilized with the “DESCRIBE” keyword followed by the table name, as shown in the following syntax:

DESCRIBE TABLE_NAME;

The table name can be any already existing table in a particular database.

Here is an example of the “DESCRIBE” statement that is utilized on the “linuxhint_products” table:

DESCRIBE linuxhint_products;

Output

In the output, it can be seen that the information about a particular table has been fetched by using the “DESCRIBE” keyword.

How to Use the SHOW COLUMNS Statement in MySQL?

The “SHOW COLUMNS” statement followed by any particular table name, allows you to fetch the information of the table’s columns. To understand how to use the “SHOW COLUMNS” statement in MySQL follow the given below syntax:

SHOW COLUMNS FROM TABLE_NAME;

By using the above syntax, you can easily get the information of the selected table.

An example of getting the information of column in a “linuxhint_products” table is provided below:

SHOW COLUMNS FROM linuxhint_products;

Output

The output showed the information that contains the column names, datatype, whether the NULL value is allowed in that column or not, etc.

Conclusion

The “DESCRIBE” and “SHOW COLUMNS” statements in MySQL are useful tools for retrieving information about the columns in a table. By using these statements, you can obtain details such as column names, data types, nullability, key information, default values, and extra attributes. Execute these statements with the appropriate table name to easily access the desired information about a specific table in your MySQL database.

How to Use DESCRIBE and SHOW COLUMNS Statement in MySQL