MySQL Terminal: Create Databases, Tables and more.

Antonio Silva - Oct 18 - - Dev Community

Create database

CREATE DATABASE database_name;
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The CREATE DATABASE command in MySQL is used to create a new database.

  • CREATE DATABASE: Command that creates a new database.
  • database_name: Name of the database you want to create. The name must be unique within the MySQL instance.

Notes:

  • The database name must follow naming conventions and cannot contain certain special characters.
  • If you try to create a database that already exists, MySQL will return an error. To avoid this, you can use the IF NOT EXISTS clause:
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS database_name;
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This version only creates the database if it does not already exist, avoiding errors.

View Database

SHOW DATABASES;
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The SHOW DATABASES; command in MySQL is used to list all the databases available on the MySQL server instance you are connected to.

Example output:

+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
| library_games      |
+--------------------+
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Explanation:

  • information_schema, mysql, performance_schema, and sys are system databases that MySQL uses to manage the instance itself and store information about privileges, performance, etc.
  • Any other databases listed are those that were created by you or by other applications, such as the library_games database in this example.

This command is useful for checking which databases are available to manage or query.

Connect to database

USE database_name;
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The USE database_name; command in MySQL is used to select a specific database and set it as the active database for the current session.

Create table

The CREATE TABLE command is used in MySQL to create a new table within a database. The basic syntax of the command defines the names of the fields (columns) and their respective data types.

CREATE TABLE table_name (
field1 data_type,
field2 data_type,
...
fieldN data_type
);
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Components:

  • table_name: Name of the table you want to create.
  • field1, field2, ... fieldN: Names of the columns (fields) that the table will have.
  • data_type: The type of data that the column will store (such as INT, VARCHAR, DATE, etc.).

Practical example:

Suppose you are creating a table called games to store information about games, where each game has an ID, a title, a genre, and a release date:

CREATE TABLE games (
id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, 
title VARCHAR(100), 
gender VARCHAR(50), 
release_date DATE 
);
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Explanation:

  • id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY: Creates an id column of type integer (INT), which increments automatically and is the primary key of the table.
  • title VARCHAR(100): Creates a title column that can store texts of up to 100 characters.
  • genre VARCHAR(50): Creates a genre column to store the genre of the game, with up to 50 characters.
  • release_date DATE: Creates a column to store the release date of the game in date format (DATE).

Notes:

  • It is important to define the correct data types for each field according to what you want to store.
  • Defining a PRIMARY KEY ensures that the values ​​in this column are unique for each row.

View contents of a table

The DESC command (or its full form DESCRIBE) is used in MySQL to display the structure of a table. It shows the column names, their data types, and other relevant information, such as whether the column allows null values ​​or is part of a primary key.

DESC table_name;
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ou

DESCRIBE table_name;
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Example:

Suppose you want to see the structure of the games table created earlier:

DESC games;
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Example output:

+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field        | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id           | int          | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| title        | varchar(100) | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| gender       | varchar(50)  | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| release_date | date         | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
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Output Explanation:

  • Field: Column name.
  • Type: The type of data stored in the column (such as int, varchar, date).
  • Null: Indicates whether the column allows null values ​​(YES) or not (NO).
  • Key: Shows whether the column is a key (PRI for primary key, UNI for unique key, MUL for index with duplicate values ​​allowed).
  • Default: The default value of the column, if any.
  • Extra: Additional information, such as auto_increment.

This command is useful for quickly checking the structure of a table without having to look at the original creation code.

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