In this article we’re going to show some simple MySQL commands to help you navigate your way around databases and tables, and also view a table’s content. First we create a new mysql session:
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Then let’s take a look at what dbs currently exist:
MariaDB [(none)]> SHOW DATABASES; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | mysql | | performance_schema | +--------------------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Note: Here we ran a command as opposed to a sql query. by convention these commands are always written in upper case. Whereas sql queries can be a mix of upper and lower cases.
Here we have 3 databases that comes as default. We can start querying one of these databases, but before we can do that we first need to select the database we’re interested in:
MariaDB [(none)]> USE mysql; Reading table information for completion of table and column names You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A Database changed MariaDB [mysql]>
Notice that the command prompt has changed. Now we can list the tables that this database has:
MariaDB [mysql]> SHOW TABLES; +---------------------------+ | Tables_in_mysql | +---------------------------+ | columns_priv | | db | | event | | func | | general_log | | help_category | | help_keyword | | help_relation | | help_topic | | host | | ndb_binlog_index | | plugin | | proc | | procs_priv | | proxies_priv | | servers | | slow_log | | tables_priv | | time_zone | | time_zone_leap_second | | time_zone_name | | time_zone_transition | | time_zone_transition_type | | user | +---------------------------+ 24 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Next if you want to see a list of columns that makes up the ‘user’ table then we do:
MariaDB [mysql]> SHOW COLUMNS FROM user;
+------------------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+------------------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Host | char(60) | NO | PRI | | |
| User | char(16) | NO | PRI | | |
| Password | char(41) | NO | | | |
| Select_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Insert_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Update_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Delete_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Drop_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Reload_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Shutdown_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Process_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| File_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Grant_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| References_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Index_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Alter_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Show_db_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Super_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_tmp_table_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Lock_tables_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Execute_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Repl_slave_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Repl_client_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_view_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Show_view_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_routine_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Alter_routine_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_user_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Event_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Trigger_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| Create_tablespace_priv | enum('N','Y') | NO | | N | |
| ssl_type | enum('','ANY') | NO | | | |
| ssl_cipher | blob | NO | | NULL | |
| x509_issuer | blob | NO | | NULL | |
| x509_subject | blob | NO | | NULL | |
| max_questions | int(11) unsigned | NO | | 0 | |
| max_updates | int(11) unsigned | NO | | 0 | |
| max_connections | int(11) unsigned | NO | | 0 | |
| max_user_connections | int(11) | NO | | 0 | |
| plugin | char(64) | NO | | | |
| authentication_string | text | NO | | NULL | |
+------------------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
42 rows in set (0.01 sec)
Note, an alternative command we could have used is DESCRIBE user;. This would have shown the same output as above.
Now we going to view contents of a table. Here’s how to view the Host, User, and Password fields of the user table, we do:
MariaDB [mysql]> SELECT Host,User,Password FROM user; +-----------+------+-------------------------------------------+ | Host | User | Password | +-----------+------+-------------------------------------------+ | localhost | root | *B638EC5422004FCF44EE84FABA603D29A2259BC0 | | 127.0.0.1 | root | *B638EC5422004FCF44EE84FABA603D29A2259BC0 | | ::1 | root | *B638EC5422004FCF44EE84FABA603D29A2259BC0 | | 10.2.5.12 | root | *B638EC5422004FCF44EE84FABA603D29A2259BC0 | +-----------+------+-------------------------------------------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec) MariaDB [mysql]>
If we wanted to view the entire table then we would do:
MariaDB [mysql]> SELECT * FROM user;
[post-content post_name=rhsca-quiz]
SHOW COLUMNS FROM user;
# or
DESCRIBE user;
SELECT Host,User,Password FROM user;
SELECT * FROM user;