DESCRIBE

Purpose

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

EXPLAIN, DESCRIBE, and DESC are synonyms.

Syntax

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

Parameters

Examples

• Display the definition of table t1.

  obclient> DESCRIBE t1;
  

  Expected return result:

  +-------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
  | 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
  

• Display the definition of column c1 in table t1.

  obclient> DESCRIBE t1 c1;
  

  Expected return result:

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