How to get a list of MySQL views?

Question

I\'m looking for a way to list all views in a database.

Initially I found and tried an answer on the MySQL forums:

SELECT table_name
FROM information         


        

Answer 1

To complement about to get more info about a specific view

Even with the two valid answers

SHOW FULL TABLES IN your_db_name WHERE TABLE_TYPE LIKE 'VIEW';

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME 
FROM information_schema.TABLES 
WHERE TABLE_TYPE LIKE 'VIEW' AND TABLE_SCHEMA LIKE 'your_db_name';

You can apply the following (I think is better):

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME 
FROM information_schema.VIEWS 
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA LIKE 'your_db_name';

is better work directly with information_schema.VIEWS (observe now is VIEWS and not TABLES anymore), thus you can retrieve more data, use DESC VIEWS for more details:

+----------------------+---------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field                | Type                            | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| TABLE_CATALOG        | varchar(64)                     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| TABLE_SCHEMA         | varchar(64)                     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| TABLE_NAME           | varchar(64)                     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| VIEW_DEFINITION      | longtext                        | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| CHECK_OPTION         | enum('NONE','LOCAL','CASCADED') | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| IS_UPDATABLE         | enum('NO','YES')                | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| DEFINER              | varchar(93)                     | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| SECURITY_TYPE        | varchar(7)                      | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT | varchar(64)                     | NO   |     | NULL    |       |
| COLLATION_CONNECTION | varchar(64)                     | NO   |     | NULL    |       |
+----------------------+---------------------------------+------+-----+---------+-------+

For example observe the VIEW_DEFINITION field, thus you can use in action:

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, VIEW_DEFINITION 
FROM information_schema.VIEWS 
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA LIKE 'your_db_name';

Of course you have more fields available for your consideration.