PHP and MySQL Programming/Creating a Table

Before creating a table, please read the previous section on Creating a Database.

A Table resides inside a database. Tables contain rows, which are made up of a collection of common fields or columns. Here is a sample output for a SELECT * query:

mysql> SELECT * FROM `books`;
+------------+--------------+------------------------------+------+
| ISBN    | Author       | Title                        | Year |
+------------+--------------+------------------------------+------+
| 1234567890 | Poisson, R.W | Programming PHP and MySQL    | 2006 |
| 5946253158 | Wilson, M    | Java Secrets                 | 2005 |
| 8529637410 | Moritz, R    | C from Beginners to Advanced | 2001 |
+------------+--------------+------------------------------+------+

As you can see, We have rows (horizontal collection of fields), as well as columns (the vertical attributes and values).

Creating a Table

The SQL code for creating a table is as follows:

mysql> CREATE TABLE `table_name` (
       `field1` type NOT NULL|NULL default 'default_value',
       `field2` type NOT NULL|NULL default 'default_value',
       ...
       );

Example

Here is an example of creating a table called `books`:

mysql> CREATE TABLE `books` (
       `ISBN` varchar(35) NOT NULL default '',
       `Author` varchar(50) NOT NULL default '',
       `Title` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
       `Year` int(11) NOT NULL default '2000'
       );

Getting Information about Tables

To get a list of tables:

mysql> SHOW TABLES;

Which produces the following output:

+-------------------+
| Tables_in_library |
+-------------------+
| books             |
+-------------------+
1 row in set (0.19 sec)

To show the CREATE query used to create the table:

mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE `books`;

Which produces the following output:

+-------+--------------------------------------------+ 
| Table | Create Table 
+-------+--------------------------------------------+
| books | CREATE TABLE `books` (
  `ISBN` varchar(35) NOT NULL default '',
  `Author` varchar(50) NOT NULL default '',
  `Title` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  `Year` int(11) NOT NULL default '2000'
) TYPE=MyISAM |
+-------+--------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.05 sec)

And then to show the same information, in a tabulated format:

mysql> DESCRIBE `books`;

Which produces the following output:

+--------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field  | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| ISBN    | varchar(35)  |      |     |         |       |
| Author | varchar(50)  |      |     |         |       |
| Title  | varchar(255) |      |     |         |       |
| Year   | int(11)      |      |     | 2000    |       |
+--------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.18 sec)