DESC VIEW

Introduced or updated: v1.2.383

Returns the list of columns for a view.

Syntax

DESC[RIBE] VIEW [<database_name>.]<view_name>

Output

The command outputs a table with the following columns:

Column	Description
Field	The name of the column in the view.
Type	The data type of the column.
Null	Indicates whether the column allows NULL values (YES for allowing NULL, NO for not allowing NULL).
Default	Specifies the default value for the column.
Extra	Provides additional information about the column, such as whether it is a computed column, or other special attributes.

Examples

-- Create the employees table
CREATE TABLE employees (
    employee_id INT,
    first_name VARCHAR(50),
    last_name VARCHAR(50),
    email VARCHAR(100),
    hire_date DATE,
    department_id INT
);

-- Insert data into the employees table
INSERT INTO employees (employee_id, first_name, last_name, email, hire_date, department_id)
VALUES
(1, 'John', 'Doe', 'john@example.com', '2020-01-01', 101),
(2, 'Jane', 'Smith', 'jane@example.com', '2020-02-01', 102),
(3, 'Alice', 'Johnson', 'alice@example.com', '2020-03-01', 103);

-- Create the employee_info view
CREATE VIEW employee_info AS
SELECT employee_id, CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name) AS full_name, email, hire_date, department_id
FROM employees;

-- Describe the structure of the employee_info view
DESC employee_info;

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     Field     │   Type  │  Null  │ Default │  Extra │
├───────────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ employee_id   │ INT     │ YES    │ NULL    │        │
│ full_name     │ VARCHAR │ YES    │ NULL    │        │
│ email         │ VARCHAR │ YES    │ NULL    │        │
│ hire_date     │ DATE    │ YES    │ NULL    │        │
│ department_id │ INT     │ YES    │ NULL    │        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘