SHOW COLUMNS from multiple tables
describe, multiple-tables, mysql, php
Solution
From the docs for version 5.0 (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/show-columns.html)
"SHOW COLUMNS displays information about the columns in a given table"
So you can't really use it on multiple tables. However if you have `information_schema` database then you could use it like follows:
select column_name
from `information_schema`.`columns`
where `table_schema` = 'mydb' and `table_name` in ('users', 'posts');
Here you'd have to replace the `mydb` with your database name, or just use `DATABASE()`.
Problem
I am trying to get the column names from 2 tables. I tried a query like: `(SHOW COLUMNS FROM users) UNION (SHOW COLUMNS FROM posts)` but that does not work & returns a syntax error. I tried the same query using `DESCRIBE` but that did not work either. How can I get all the column names from multiple tables in a single query? Is it possible?