Describe the column structure of a MySQL table

The SQL command ‘describe’ allows you to view the column structure of a MySQL table. It provides a listing of the columns of a table, the type of each column, and additional information on each column.

To view the structure of a MySQL table called ‘recipes’ use the following SQL command:

describe recipes;

The command can be issued from any SQL source including an application with database connectivity (i.e., PHP, Java, etc.) or directly from mysql command (see Connect to a MySQL server using the mysql command for more information).