Describe the column structure of a MySQL table

Contributed by qmchenry  
Tagged: MySQL  

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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).

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6 Comments -

1. Niladri said on January 7, 2009

   What is the alternate command of describe ??

2. Anonymous said on January 11, 2010

   Thanks Dude,
   Thats what I was looking for all day :)

3. Ankit Singhania said on May 18, 2010

   Thanks a lot for this..

4. Michael de Silva said on February 20, 2011

   desc table_name

   This works too :)

5. M D said on June 20, 2011

   waste

6. aRGon said on October 1, 2011

   can also do,

   show columns from table;

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