SQL query to get the syntax of an existing table

Question

Is there any SQL query to get the syntax of an existing table in my MySql database?

Intent: Iam in the early stages of working with databases and I am using the MySql workbench for creating tables and updating them whenever needed. At some point there are cases where I would like to have the syntax that the table is now holding so as to document it or paste it in forums like StackOverflow(expecting that I can show all the constraints in fact the foreign key constraints on the table in an easy way).

Please let me know if there is any workaround for this.

Answer 1

You can use SHOW CREATE TABLE <table_name>; to get CREATE TABLE statement. Eg. SHOW CREATE TABLE acl_user_role; This will show you the table name and CREATE TABLE statement, something like:

CREATE TABLE `acl_user_role` (
  `UserId` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
  `RoleId` SMALLINT(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`UserId`,`RoleId`),
  KEY `FK_UserRole_Role` (`RoleId`),
  CONSTRAINT `FK_UserRole_Role` FOREIGN KEY (`RoleId`) REFERENCES `acl_role` (`RoleId`),
  CONSTRAINT `FK_UserRole_User` FOREIGN KEY (`UserId`) REFERENCES `user` (`UserId`)
) ENGINE=INNODB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

If you want to know about Keys for a particular table, use something like SHOW KEYS FROM acl_user_role;

And if you want to get all keys and constraints referencing to other table (like foreign key references), use:

SELECT * FROM `information_schema`.`KEY_COLUMN_USAGE`
WHERE TABLE_NAME = '<your_table_name>' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = '<your_database_name>';

-- Example
SELECT * FROM `information_schema`.`KEY_COLUMN_USAGE`
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'acl_user_role' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = 'db_shop';

Hope this may help you...