Question

How can I get List<string> of all table names contained in a MySQL database?

I want to load a complete database into a DataSet but from my understanding it seems that MySqlDataAdapter.Fill() only operates on single tables, correct? That is what I want to use the table string collection for.

EDIT:

1. I look for the correct query: The following returns 59 different items despite the database only holding 3 tables:

       MySqlCommand command = new MySqlCommand("SELECT table_name FROM information_schema.tables where table_type = 'BASE TABLE'", connection);
       var result = command.ExecuteReader();
   

2. I look for C# code to parse the result of the query into a List<string>.

Answer 1

Use Entity fraemwork, add your schema to the dbcontext then you can make something like:

var tableNames = context.MetadataWorkspace.GetItems(DataSpace.SSpace)
                        .Select(t => t.Name)
                        .ToList();

EDIT:

Alternativly you can read the tablen names using a normal sql query (for example using Show tables) and parse these into a list like:

List<String> Tablenames = new List<String>();

using(SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection("conn_string"))
{
    string query = "show tables from YourDB";
    SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(query, connection);
    using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader())
    {
        while (reader.Read())
        {
            Tablenames.Add(reader.GetString(0));
        }         
    }
}