Question

Is it possible to query a MySQL database to get the column names of a table in alphabetical order? I know that

SHOW COLUMNS `table_name`;

or

DESCRIBE `table_name`;

will give me a list of the columns in a table (along with other info), but is it possible to alter the query in order to get the columns sorted alphabetically. Adding ORDER BY ‘Field’ didn’t work, it gave a syntax error.

Answer 1

The ANSI INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables (in this case, INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS) provide more flexibility in MySQL:

SELECT c.column_name
  FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS c
 WHERE c.table_name = 'tbl_name'
-- AND c.table_schema = 'db_name'    
ORDER BY c.column_name