DESCRIBE TABLE

Shows information about the columns in a given table.

tip

SHOW COLUMNS provides similar but more information about the columns of a table.

Syntax

DESC|DESCRIBE [database.]table_name

Examples

CREATE TABLE books
  (
     price  FLOAT Default 0.00,
     pub_time DATETIME Default '1900-01-01',
     author VARCHAR
  );

DESC books; 

Field   |Type     |Null|Default     |Extra|
--------+---------+----+------------+-----+
price   |FLOAT    |NO  |0.00        |     |
pub_time|TIMESTAMP|NO  |'1900-01-01'|     |
author  |VARCHAR  |NO  |""          |     |