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What are the differences between EXPLAIN and DESC commands in MySQL ?

Riedsio
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Puru
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1 Answers1

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  • Explain will give you more information about a query,
  • describe will give you more information about tables or columns.

You can also use EXPLAIN on a table name, in which case it will behave exactly like DESCRIBE.

EXPLAIN SELECT * 
FROM `customer`

id  select_type  table  type  possible_keys  key  key_len  ref  rows  Extra 
1 SIMPLE customer ALL NULL NULL NULL NULL 2

vs.

DESCRIBE `customer`
Field  Type  Null  Key  Default  Extra 
CustomerID varchar(2) NO      
Cx varchar(3) NO
Konerak
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  • https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/explain.html says "The DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN statements are synonyms." And "the MySQL parser treats them as completely synonymous." – palapapa Apr 11 '23 at 07:43