How to get database structure in MySQL via query

Question

Is it possible to somehow get structure of MySQL database, or just some table with simple query?

Or is there another way, how can I do it?

Answer 1

Take a look at the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES table. It contains metadata about all your tables.

Example:

SELECT * FROM `INFORMATION_SCHEMA`.`TABLES`
WHERE TABLE_NAME LIKE 'table1'

The advantage of this over other methods is that you can easily use queries like the one above as subqueries in your other queries.