DESCRIBE

The DESCRIBE statement shows the schema of a table, view or query.

Usage

Query

DESCRIBE TABLE tbl;

Result

 column_name      | column_type | null | key  | default | extra------------------+-------------+------+------+---------+------- id               | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL name             | VARCHAR     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL col1             | DOUBLE      | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL col2             | DOUBLE      | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL some column name | VARCHAR     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL i                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL a                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL b                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL c                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number           | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number1          | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number2          | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL

To describe a query, prepend DESCRIBE to a query.

Query

DESCRIBE SELECT * FROM tbl;

Result

 column_name      | column_type | null | key  | default | extra------------------+-------------+------+------+---------+------- id               | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL name             | VARCHAR     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL col1             | DOUBLE      | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL col2             | DOUBLE      | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL some column name | VARCHAR     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL i                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL a                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL b                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL c                | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number           | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number1          | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL number2          | INTEGER     | YES  | NULL | NULL    | NULL

Alias

The SHOW statement is an alias for DESCRIBE.

See Also

For more examples, see the guide on DESCRIBE.