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MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual :: 4 MySQL Programs :: 4.5 MySQL Client Programs :: 4.5.6 mysqlshow — Display Database, Table, and Column Information
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4.5.6. mysqlshow — Display Database, Table, and Column Information

The mysqlshow client can be used to quickly see which databases exist, their tables, or a table's columns or indexes.

mysqlshow provides a command-line interface to several SQL SHOW statements. See Section 12.4.5, “SHOW Syntax”. The same information can be obtained by using those statements directly. For example, you can issue them from the mysql client program.

Invoke mysqlshow like this: 

shell> mysqlshow [options] [db_name [tbl_name [col_name]]]

  • If no database is given, a list of database names is shown.

  • If no table is given, all matching tables in the database are shown.

  • If no column is given, all matching columns and column types in the table are shown.

The output displays only the names of those databases, tables, or columns for which you have some privileges.

If the last argument contains shell or SQL wildcard characters (“*”, “?”, “%”, or “_”), only those names that are matched by the wildcard are shown. If a database name contains any underscores, those should be escaped with a backslash (some Unix shells require two) to get a list of the proper tables or columns. “*” and “?” characters are converted into SQL “%” and “_” wildcard characters. This might cause some confusion when you try to display the columns for a table with a “_” in the name, because in this case, mysqlshow shows you only the table names that match the pattern. This is easily fixed by adding an extra “%” last on the command line as a separate argument.

mysqlshow supports the following options, which can be specified on the command line or in the [mysqlshow] and [client] option file groups. mysqlshow also supports the options for processing option files described at Section 4.2.3.3.1, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Table 4.7. mysqlshow Options

Format Config File Description Introduction Deprecated Removed
--compress compress Compress all information sent between the client and the server      
--count count Show the number of rows per table      
--debug[=debug_options] debug Write a debugging log      
--debug-check debug-check Print debugging information when the program exits 5.1.21    
--debug-info debug-info Print debugging information, memory and CPU statistics when the program exits 5.1.14    
--default-character-set=charset_name default-character-set Use charset_name as the default character set      
--help   Display help message and exit      
--host=host_name host Connect to the MySQL server on the given host      
--keys keys Show table indexes      
--password[=password] password The password to use when connecting to the server      
--pipe   On Windows, connect to server via a named pipe      
--port=port_num port The TCP/IP port number to use for the connection      
--protocol=type protocol The connection protocol to use      
--show-table-type   Show a column indicating the table type      
--socket=path socket For connections to localhost      
--ssl-ca=file_name ssl-ca The path to a file that contains a list of trusted SSL CAs      
--ssl-capath=directory_name ssl-capath The path to a directory that contains trusted SSL CA certificates in PEM format      
--ssl-cert=file_name ssl-cert The name of the SSL certificate file to use for establishing a secure connection      
--ssl-cipher=cipher_list ssl-cipher A list of allowable ciphers to use for SSL encryption      
--ssl-key=file_name ssl-key The name of the SSL key file to use for establishing a secure connection      
--ssl-verify-server-cert ssl-verify-server-cert The server's Common Name value in its certificate is verified against the host name used when connecting to the server      
--status status Display extra information about each table      
--user=user_name, user The MySQL user name to use when connecting to the server      
--verbose   Verbose mode      
--version   Display version information and exit      

User Comments

Posted by arjan muyen on June 18 2004 10:57am[Delete] [Edit]

I needed to drop 38 tables on database php1 and could not find a metadata table on which I could execute SQL like: delete from metadata where table_name like 'phpbb208%'
Workaround-Solution:

mysqlshow -uroot -p php1 phpbb208\\_% |sed 's/[|+-]//g'|sed 's/[ ]*$/,/'>drop208.sql
(**note the \\ to get the phpbb208_% wildcard**)

provided me the table_name, table_name, ... list
editing drop208.sql and adding 'drop table' provided me the complete drop-statement.

mysql php1 -u root -p < drop208.sql

Done

Posted by Nan Li on April 7 2005 2:48am[Delete] [Edit]

Another example use of mysqlshow.
I wanted to have all the tables in a database that contains a certain field.
Here is the bash shell script I wrote:

#!/bin/sh
#This scripts returns all the tables in a database that contains some field

function usage
{
echo "Usage: $0 USER DB COLUMN"
}

function ExistsColumn
{
local USER=$1
local DB=$2
local TABLE=$3
local COLUMN=$4

SEARCH_RESULT=$(mysqlshow -u ${USER} ${DB} ${TABLE} ${COLUMN} | awk '{ if ( NR == 5) print $2 }')
if [ "${COLUMN}" = "${SEARCH_RESULT}" ];
then
echo "true";
else
echo "false";
fi
}

function main
{
local USER=$1
local DB=$2
local COLUMN=$3

if [[ "${USER}" = "" || "${DB}" = "" || "${COLUMN}" = "" ]];
then
usage
exit 1
fi

all_tables=$(mysqlshow -u ${USER} ${DB} | \
awk '{ if (NR >4 ) print $_}' | \
sed -e 's/[|+-]//g; /^$/d ' | \
xargs )
for TABLE in ${all_tables}; do
if [ "true" = "$(ExistsColumn $USER $DB $TABLE $COLUMN)" ];
then
echo $TABLE
fi
done

}

main $*

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