Frequently I need to look up some information about the columns of a given database table. I usually resort to looking up the MySQL docs. I thought I’d document it here for easy access.

The general syntax is:

show columns from table from db

Here’s a simple example:

mysql> show columns from quote from quotedb;
+--------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field  | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+--------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| ID     | smallint(6)   | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| QUOTE  | varchar(1000) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| ATTRIB | varchar(100)  | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+--------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

If you are already using the database in question you can simply use:

show columns from table