Useful Commands

I have collected some commands I found useful.

To see all databases

use mysql;
select * from db;
select Db from db;

or

show databases

To use a databse

use {database_name}

To Show tables

show tables;

To see table colums and info

describe {tablename};

To list results of a query vertically you can add a '\G' to the end of the query.

select * from mysql.user where user='fred' \G

(Notice there is no ';' at the end of that query, just the '\G')

To get info about a table.  Notice the syntax is not what I would expect,

use mysql;
show table status like 'user';

or if you want to see info about all the tables in a database

show table status in mysql;

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/...le-status.html

There are also several useful "SHOW" commands, check out the documentation.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/show.html

To see mysql variables, seting for the mysql server

SHOW VARIABLES;
SHOW VARIABLES LIKE '%size%';
SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE '%size%';

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/...variables.html