dbrowse

Show Table Status

This node is informative and descriptive.
[definitions]

Query Path

Interactive Path

Synopsis

This node is a summary view of all tables in the current database.
To list all tables in a database, use this query:

or the short and sweet:

to list all tables in the active database.

Node/View

Note: The column headers in the table below are links to additional information further down the page.

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Description of Results

For detailed documentation regarding the information displayed on this page, visit the MySQL Reference Manual section on Show Table Status. Brief descriptions are listed below, some of which have links to more specific sections of the manual.

Please! Do NOT be a victim of jargon and terminology. A “field” and a “column” are the same thing. A “record” and a “row” are the same thing!

MySQL Terms

Table

The name of the table in the database. This may seem over-simplified, but it merits mentioning. To begin with, all tables are stored as files on the host machine and thus have any restrictions on filenames based on the OS of the host machine. A database is really nothing but a directory to hold these files. Although it is quite common to use a MySQL client program to access databases via a server on another host, in rare cases will the two machines be running on different platforms. For this tutorial, the client and the server are running on the same host, which is a FreeBSD box. Meaning I have few restrictions on filenames and, more importantly, they are case-sensitive. See Identifier Case Sensitivity for more details. To view one table’s structure, select it from the column list.

Type

The is the Storage Engine used by the table. For this Web site, the databases consist mostly of MyISAM tables. I will be getting into InnoDB and Memory (Heap) tables in a later series. See also Storage Engines in the reference manual.

Format

This is the row storage format. Generally that means either fixed, or variable-length records. There are advantages to both, but I prefer fixed-length when I can avoid variable-length records, for performance reasons. See also Storage Requirements.

Note: You cannot have both fixed and variable-length column types in the same table. This is a source of some confusion among new MySQL users. See Silent Column Changes for more details.

Rows

The number of records in the table. For MyISAM tables this is accurate, for other table types it may be an approximation.

Size

The size, or “width” of one record, in bytes. Again, depending on the column types, and even the table type, this could be only an approximation. Hint: variable-length columns.

Data

For most Storage Engines such as MyISAM, this is the size, on disk, occupied by the data in the table. In kilobytes.

Keys

Storage, on disk, occupied by the indexes in the table. Also in kilobytes.

Meta

This is a summary view for all tables in the current database. The Meta view will give you complete metadata on each of these tables. See directly below.

Navigation

To view the structural/schema information for a single table, follow that path by selecting the table name from the left-hand column. For detailed metadata information on any table, follow the » link on the far right. To continue browsing this database, use your Web browser’s navigation features such as the back and forward buttons, the Backspace key, or the query or interactive path interfaces provided with this application.