We can achieve this with the help of SHOW command. Firstly, I will use my database with the help of USE command −
mysql> USE business; Database changed
We are in the “business” database now. After that, we can check that how many tables are available for this database. The query is as follows −
mysql> SHOW tables;
The following is the output
+------------------------+ | Tables_in_business | +------------------------+ | addcolumntable | | autoincrement | | autoincrementtable | | bookindexes | | chardemo | | clonestudent | | columnvaluenulldemo | | dateadddemo | | deletedemo | | deleterecord | | demo | | demo1 | | demoascii | | demoauto | | demobcrypt | | demoemptyandnull | | demoint | | demoonreplace | | demoschema | | distinctdemo | | duplicatebookindexes | | duplicatefound | | employeetable | | existsrowdemo | | findandreplacedemo | | firsttable | | foreigntable | | foreigntabledemo | | groupdemo | | groupdemo1 | | incasesensdemo | | int1demo | | intdemo | | latandlangdemo | | limitoffsetdemo | | milliseconddemo | | modifycolumnnamedemo | | modifydatatype | | moneydemo | | moviecollection | | mytable | | nonasciidemo | | nthrecorddemo | | nulldemo | | nullwithselect | | pasthistory | | presenthistory | | primarytable | | primarytable1 | | primarytabledemo | | rownumberdemo | | rowstranspose | | rowstransposedemo | | secondtable | | sequencedemo | | smallintdemo | | spacecolumn | | student | | tblfirst | | tblstudent | | tbluni | | textdemo | | texturl | | trailingandleadingdemo | | transcationdemo | | unsigneddemo | | updtable | | varchardemo | | varchardemo1 | | varchardemo2 | | varcharurl | | whereconditon | +------------------------+ 72 rows in set (0.03 sec)
Alternate ways by which we can check whether a table exist or not without using SELECT statement is shown below.
The syntax is as follows −
SHOW tables like ‘yourTableName’;
Now, I am applying the above query to check whether the table exist or not for my database “business”.
The query is as follows −
mysql> SHOW tables like 'tblstudent';
The following is the output
+---------------------------------+ | Tables_in_business (tblstudent) | +---------------------------------+ | tblstudent | +---------------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Look at the output above, the table ‘tblstudent’ is visible in my database. The case when table does not exist is as follows −
mysql> SHOW tables like 'sampledemo'; Empty set (0.00 sec)