How to generate SQL table structure as a text table? - mysql

Question

Ho to export MySQL table structure as text version table?
I mean something like this:
+-----------+-----------+------+-----+-------------------+-----------------------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-----------+-----------+------+-----+-------------------+-----------------------------+
| EID | int(11) | NO | PRI | 0 | |
| MOD_EID | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| EXIT_TIME | timestamp | NO | | CURRENT_TIMESTAMP | on update CURRENT_TIMESTAMP |
+-----------+-----------+------+-----+-------------------+-----------------------------+
I'm sure there is some tool which will export table like this. Does anyone know how to do this from MySQL?

Answer 1

you could accomplish that with 3 ways.
DESC : ease of use
SHOW CREATE TABLE : ease of create new table with another table's same schema
information_schema : difficult to use, but powerful.
1. using DESCRIBE
DESC $DB_NAME.$TBL_NAME;
sample output
mysql> DESC jsheo_test.test;
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| name | varchar(10) | YES | | NULL | |
| age | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| spent | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| gender | char(1) | YES | | NULL | |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2. using SHOW CREATE TABLE
SHOW CREATE TABLE $DB_NAME.$TBL_NAME;
sample output
mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE jsheo_test.test\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Table: test
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `test` (
`name` varchar(10) DEFAULT NULL,
`age` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`spent` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`gender` char(1) DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8
3. using information schema
SELECT TABLE_NAME
, COLUMN_NAME
, ORDINAL_POSITION
, DATA_TYPE
, IS_NULLABLE
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = '$DB_NAME'
AND TABLE_NAME = '$TBL_NAME'
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME, ORDINAL_POSITION;
sample output
+------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+
| TABLE_NAME | COLUMN_NAME | ORDINAL_POSITION | DATA_TYPE | IS_NULLABLE |
+------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+
| test | name | 1 | varchar | YES |
| test | age | 2 | int | YES |
| test | spent | 3 | int | YES |
| test | gender | 4 | char | YES |
+------------+-------------+------------------+-----------+-------------+
4. from shell
run use -e option
$ mysql -uusername -S ~/tmp/mysql.sock -e "DESC jsheo_test.test"
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| name | varchar(10) | YES | | NULL | |
| age | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| spent | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| gender | char(1) | YES | | NULL | |
+--------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
otherwise output format is strange. something like below.
$ echo "desc jsheo_test.test;" | mysql -uusername -S /tmp/mysql.sock
Field Type Null Key Default Extra
name varchar(10) YES NULL
age int(11) YES NULL
spent int(11) YES NULL
gender char(1) YES NULL

Answer 2

you can SELECT some fields and store them in a OUTFILE with this command:
SELECT * FROM table_name INTO OUTFILE 'textile.txt'

Answer 3

the mysql command line tool allows you to do that with the command
desc tablename;

Answer 4

You can go for
$>SELECT * FROM TABLE_NAME
INTO OUTFILE '/PATH/TO/TEXTFILE.TXT'
OR
$>mysql -h<mysqlhostname> -u<username> -p <databasename> -e "SELECT * FROM TABLE_NAME" > myfile.txt
Replace the SQL.