Getting the MySQL table structure in PHP

Question

What query do I need to run in PHP to get the structure of a given table in the database and what query do I need to run to get a list of all the tables in the database.

Answer 1

To get a list of columns for a table, use the DESCRIBE SQL statement. The syntax is as follows:

DESCRIBE TableName

To get a list of tables on the database, use this SQL statement:

SHOW TABLES

Answer 2

To get the CREATE syntax use

SHOW CREATE TABLE table_name;

Also take a look in the information_schema database. Lots of very useful information about your databases, tables, indexes, etc.

See: How to find all the tables in MySQL with specific column names in them?