SHOW has many forms that provide information about databases, tables, columns, or status information about the server. This section describes those following:

SHOW CHARACTER SET [like_or_where]
SHOW COLLATION [like_or_where]
SHOW [FULL] COLUMNS FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name] [like_or_where]
SHOW CREATE DATABASE db_name
SHOW CREATE FUNCTION funcname
SHOW CREATE PROCEDURE procname
SHOW CREATE TABLE tbl_name
SHOW DATABASES [like_or_where]
SHOW ENGINE engine_name {LOGS | STATUS }
SHOW [STORAGE] ENGINES
SHOW ERRORS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]
SHOW FUNCTION CODE sp_name
SHOW FUNCTION STATUS [like_or_where]
SHOW GRANTS FOR user
SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name [FROM db_name]
SHOW INNODB STATUS
SHOW PROCEDURE CODE sp_name
SHOW PROCEDURE STATUS [like_or_where]
SHOW [BDB] LOGS
SHOW MUTEX STATUS
SHOW OPEN TABLES [FROM db_name] [like_or_where]
SHOW PRIVILEGES
SHOW [FULL] PROCESSLIST
SHOW PROFILE [types] [FOR QUERY n] [OFFSET n] [LIMIT n]
SHOW PROFILES
SHOW [GLOBAL | SESSION] STATUS [like_or_where]
SHOW TABLE STATUS [FROM db_name] [like_or_where]
SHOW TABLES [FROM db_name] [like_or_where]
SHOW TRIGGERS [FROM db_name] [like_or_where]
SHOW [GLOBAL | SESSION] VARIABLES [like_or_where]
SHOW WARNINGS [LIMIT [offset,] row_count]

like_or_where:
    LIKE 'pattern'
  | WHERE expr

If the syntax for a given SHOW statement includes a LIKE 'pattern' part, 'pattern' is a string that can contain the SQL “%” and “_” wildcard characters. The pattern is useful for restricting statement output to matching values.

Several SHOW statements also accept a WHERE clause that provides more flexibility in specifying which rows to display. See Section 24.19, “Extensions to SHOW Statements”.

Many MySQL APIs (such as PHP) allow you to treat the result returned from a SHOW statement as you would a result set from a SELECT; see Chapter 26, APIs and Libraries, or your API documentation for more information. In addition, you can work in SQL with results from queries on tables in the INFORMATION_SCHEMA database, which you cannot easily do with results from SHOW statements. See Chapter 24, INFORMATION_SCHEMA Tables.