How to Count the Number of Columns in a MySQL Table?

Counting Table Columns in MySQL

Determining the number of columns in a MySQL table can be useful for various applications. Here's how you can retrieve this information efficiently:

Query:

To count the columns in a table named "tbl_ifo," you can execute the following query:

SELECT count(*)
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name = 'tbl_ifo'

Explanation:

• The initial query, SELECT count(*), tallies the number of rows in the result set.
• The FROM clause specifies a virtual table named information_schema.columns, which contains metadata about all user tables in the database.
• The WHERE clause limits the result set to only rows that have a table_name matching 'tbl_ifo'.

Sample Data:

As an example, consider the following table:

Column 1	Column 2	Column 3
1	John	15
2	Maria	18
3	Steph	19
4	Jay	21

Result:

Executing the count query on this table would return:

count(*)
---------
3

Therefore, the sample table contains a total of three columns.

The above is the detailed content of How to Count the Number of Columns in a MySQL Table?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!