MySQL Command Line Help

Updated November 30, 2023, First Published September 22, 2006 by Pete Freitag

I tend to use MySQL from the interactive command line shell quite a bit (SSH to your db server and type the command mysql to start). I noticed today that there is a pretty extensive built in help system in this command.

You can access it by typing help COMMAND, so for instance if you type help ALTER TABLE you get a quick reference for constructing an ALTER TABLE statement.

If you can't remember what command you want to use, then typing help contents is your friend. It will output:

For more information, type 'help item', where item is 
one of the following categories:
   Administration
   Column Types
   Data Definition
   Data Manipulation
   Functions
   Geographic features
   Transactions

So if your looking for that command that outputs all the columns in a table, but don't know what it's called, you might now try help administration and it will tell you:

For more information, type 'help item', where item is 
one of the following categories:
   ANALYZE
   BACKUP TABLE
   CHECK
   CHECKSUM
   CONSTRAINT
   CREATE USER
   DESCRIBE
   FLUSH QUERY CACHE
   GRANT TYPES
   MERGE
   RENAME USER
   REPAIR
   RESET SLAVE
   RESTORE
   SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER
   SET PASSWORD
   SHOW SLAVE STATUS
   START SLAVE
   STOP SLAVE

Yes of course the command to show the columns in a table is called DESCRIBE, and you can get the help for it by typing help DESCRIBE (you pretty much just run DESCRIBE tableName)

My only wish for this handy feature is that some of the help pages listed simple examples, and not just syntax.