How can I check if a MySQL table exists with PHP?

Question

As simple in theory as it sounds I\'ve done a fair amount of research and am having trouble figuring this out.

How can I check if a MySQL table exists and if it does

Answer 1

The cleanest way to achieve this in PHP is to simply use DESCRIBE statement.

if ( mysql_query( "DESCRIBE `my_table`" ) ) {
    // my_table exists
}

I'm not sure why others are posting complicated queries for a such a straight forward problem.

Update

Using PDO

// assuming you have already setup $pdo
$sh = $pdo->prepare( "DESCRIBE `my_table`");
if ( $sh->execute() ) {
    // my_table exists
} else {
    // my_table does not exist    
}