Describe the column structure of a MySQL table
The SQL command ‘describe’ allows you to view the column structure of a MySQL table. It provides a listing of the columns of a table, the type of each column, and additional information on each column.
To view the structure of a MySQL table called ‘recipes’ use the following SQL command:
describe recipes;
The command can be issued from any SQL source including an application with database connectivity (i.e., PHP, Java, etc.) or directly from mysql command (see Connect to a MySQL server using the mysql command for more information).











Niladri said on January 7, 2009
What is the alternate command of describe ??
Anonymous said on January 11, 2010
Thanks Dude,
Thats what I was looking for all day :)
Ankit Singhania said on May 18, 2010
Thanks a lot for this..
Michael de Silva said on February 20, 2011
desc table_nameThis works too :)
M D said on June 20, 2011
waste
aRGon said on October 1, 2011
can also do,
show columns from table;