How do you match a table name with a column in MySQL?

 In MySQL, if you want to match a table name with a column name, you are likely trying to find which table contains a specific column. To achieve this, you can query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA database, which holds metadata about all the databases, tables, columns, and other objects in the MySQL server.

Here’s how you can match a column name with the table name(s) in MySQL:

Example Query

SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE COLUMN_NAME = 'your_column_name'
  AND TABLE_SCHEMA = 'your_database_name';

Explanation:

• INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS: This table contains information about all columns in all tables in the database.
• COLUMN_NAME: The name of the column you are looking for.
• TABLE_SCHEMA: The name of the database (schema) where you want to search.
• TABLE_NAME: The name of the table that contains the column you're looking for.

Example Use Case

If you’re looking for a column called email in the employees database, you would run:

SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE COLUMN_NAME = 'email'
  AND TABLE_SCHEMA = 'employees';

This query will return all table names in the employees database that contain a column named email.

Additional Notes:

• If you're unsure about the exact column name, you can use the LIKE operator for partial matches:

  WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%email%'
  

• If you are looking for multiple databases, you can omit the TABLE_SCHEMA condition or leave it as % to search all databases.