DESCRIBE

Description

This statement is used to retrieve the schema information of a table or column.

EXPLAIN is a synonym of DESCRIBE and DESC.

Syntax

{EXPLAIN | DESCRIBE | DESC} table_name [column_name | wild];

Parameters

Parameter	Description
table_name	The name of the table.
column_name	The name of the column in the table.

Examples

• Show the definition of table t1.

  DESCRIBE t1;
  +-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | Field | Type        | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
  +-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | c1    | int(11)     | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
  | c2    | int(11)     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
  | c3    | varchar(20) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
  +-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  3 rows in set (0.002 sec)

• Show the definition of column c1 in table t1.

  DESCRIBE t1 c1;
  +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | Field | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
  +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | c1    | int(11) | NO   | PRI | NULL    |       |
  +-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  1 row in set (0.001 sec)