How to check if a table or a column exists in a database?

Question

I am trying to make simple java code that will check if a table and/or a column exists in a MySQL DB. Should I use Java code to do the checking or make a SQL query string an

Answer 1

Knowing that you can practically select a column from a table using the following SQL statement (in MySQL):

show columns from TABLE_NAME where field = 'FIELD_NAME';

You could do something like:

...
PreparedStatement preparedStatement =
  connection.prepareStatement(
    "show columns from [TABLE_NAME] where field = ?");
preparedStatement.setString(1, columName);

ResultSet resultSet = preparedStatement.executeQuery();

if (resultSet.next()) {
    System.out.println("column exists!");
} else {
    System.out.println("column doesn't exists!");
}
...