Using mysql in Batch Mode 326 3.5 Using mysql in Batch Mode If you have not yet selected any database, the result is  NULL . To find out what tables the default database contains (for example, when you are not sure about the name of a table), use this statement: The name of the column in the output produced by this statement is always  Tables_in_ db_name , where db_name  is the name of the database. See Section 13.7.7.39, “SHOW TABLES Statement” , for more information. If you want to find out about the structure of a table, the  DESCRIBE  statement is useful; it displays information about each of a table’s columns: Field  indicates the column name,  Type  is the data type for the column,  NULL  indicates whether the column can contain  NULL  values,  Key  indicates whether the column is indexed, and  Default  specifies the column’s default value.  Extra  displays special information about columns: If a column was created with the  AUTO_INCREMENT  option, the value is  auto_increment  rather than empty. DESC  is a short form of  DESCRIBE . See Section 13.8.1, “DESCRIBE Statement” , for more information. You can obtain the  CREATE TABLE  statement necessary to create an existing table using the  SHOW CREATE TABLE  statement. See Section 13.7.7.10, “SHOW CREATE TABLE Statement” . If you have indexes on a table,  SHOW INDEX FROM  tbl_name  produces information about them. See Section 13.7.7.22, “SHOW INDEX Statement” , for more about this statement. In the previous sections, you used  mysql  interactively to enter statements and view the results. You can also run  mysql  in batch mode. To do this, put the statements you want to run in a file, then tell  mysql  to read its input from the file: shell>  mysql <  batch-file If you are running  mysql  under Windows and have some special characters in the file that cause problems, you can do this: mysql>  DESCRIBE pet; +---------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +---------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ | name | varchar(20) | YES | | NULL | | | owner | varchar(20) | YES | | NULL | | | species | varchar(20) | YES | | NULL | | | sex | char(1) | YES | | NULL | | | birth | date | YES | | NULL | | | death | date | YES | | NULL | | +---------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+ mysql>  SHOW TABLES; +---------------------+ | Tables_in_menagerie | +---------------------+ | event | | pet | +---------------------+ +------------+ | menagerie | +------------+