In-depth Guide: MySQL SHOW TABLES Command

Understanding how to efficiently navigate and manage table structures is crucial in database administration and development. MySQL, one of the most popular open source relational database management systems, provides a rich set of SQL commands to help users accomplish this task.

Among them, the SHOW TABLES command is a basic and powerful tool that allows users to quickly view a list of all tables in the current database. In this article, we will discuss the usage of MySQL SHOW TABLES command, advanced techniques and how to combine with other tools to efficiently manage MySQL tables.

What Is SHOW TABLES & Its Basic Use

SHOW TABLES is a SQL command provided by MySQL, which is mainly used to display all the tables in the currently selected database. This command is very useful for database administrators or developers because it gives a quick overview of the structure of the database, especially if you don’t know or don’t remember exactly what tables are in the database.

The most basic MySQL SHOW TABLES command does not require any parameters and can be executed directly from the MySQL command line or query interface to list all the tables in the current database:

Sql

SHOW TABLES;

After executing the above command, you will see an output similar to the following, which lists all the table names in the database:

List Table Names

MySQL SHOW TABLES to View the Table of a Particular Database

If you want to view the tables of a specific database, you need to use the USE command to switch to that database, or directly in the SHOW TABLES followed by the name of the database (which requires the user to have sufficient privileges):

Sql

USE database_name;

SHOW TABLES;

— or

SHOW TABLES FROM database_name;

SHOW TABLES to Filter Specific Patterns of Tables

In order to filter tables with specific patterns, you can use the LIKE clause. For example, only tables whose names begin with “user_” are displayed:

Sql

SHOW TABLES LIKE ‘user_%’;

Tip: Using %

MySQL’s SHOW TABLES supports wildcards. The most common wildcards are % (matches any number of characters) and _ (matches a single character). For example, to find all tables ending in _data:

Sql

SHOW TABLES LIKE ‘%_data’;

Example

Suppose you are maintaining a database of evidence collected in judicial cases, which contains several tables such as case type, case creation time, suspect data, etc. When you need to quickly check whether all “crime” related tables exist, you can do this:

Sql

SHOW TABLES LIKE ‘crime%’;

This command will list all the tables whose names begin with “crime”, such as crime_2023, crime_archive, etc., to help you quickly confirm the existence of the relevant table.

MySQL SHOW TABLES for Results Sorting

By default, the order of tables returned by SHOW TABLES is not fixed. If you need to view tables in a particular order, you can apply a sort operation on the query results. Although SHOW TABLES itself does not support ORDER BY, you can save the results to a temporary table or variable before sorting, or sort the result set in the client software.

How to Display Complete Tables in MySQL

Although MySQL SHOW TABLES itself does not directly show the details of a table’s structure, you can use a combination of other commands such as DESCRIBE or SHOW CREATE TABLE to view the structure of a specific table:

Sql

DESCRIBE your_table_name;

Or

Sql

SHOW CREATE TABLE your_table_name;

How Do I View Table Data in MySQL

In addition to regular SQL queries (e.g. SELECT * FROM your_table;), for cases where you need to recover lost data or extract information from a corrupted database, you can use third-party software such as MTM Database Recovery for MySQL. the software is designed for MySQL databases and is capable of viewing, scanning, and recovering table structures and data.

The steps are briefly described below:

Step 1. Download and install MTM Database Recovery for MySQL.

Step 2. Open the software, select the “Recovery” function, locate the MySQL data file directory (usually the data directory), and select the database to be recovered.

 

Step 3. If you only want to view the table data in MySQL and do not need to repair the files, you do not need to check “Recover deleted data” and click “Recover” to confirm. Instead, the software will automatically analyze and display the recoverable tables and data.

 

Step 4. Wait for the software to scan. After the scanning is completed, you can view the table data in MySQL. If you need to export the completed file repair, select the target table and then choose “Export” to export to database or export to CSV file.

How to Get and Manage Table Columns Using MySQL GUI Tools

GUI tools such as MySQL Workbench provide a graphical interface to view and manage tables. In Workbench, select “Schemas” in the left navigation bar, then expand your database and double-click on any table to view its structure, including column information, indexes, foreign keys, etc., and can be edited directly.

Conclusion

MySQL SHOW TABLES is an indispensable part of MySQL database management. By flexibly utilizing its basic syntax and combining other SQL commands, you can efficiently browse and filter tables in the database. Combining MySQL GUI tools and professional data recovery software, such as MTM Database Recovery for MySQL, can further enhance the efficiency of database management and fault recovery. Whether for daily development and maintenance or responding to a data crisis, mastering these skills will be an invaluable resource.

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