TABLES

The TABLES table provides information about tables in databases:

USE information_schema;
DESC tables;

+---------------------------+---------------+------+------+----------+-------+
| Field                     | Type          | Null | Key  | Default  | Extra |
+---------------------------+---------------+------+------+----------+-------+
| TABLE_CATALOG             | varchar(512)  | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_SCHEMA              | varchar(64)   | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_NAME                | varchar(64)   | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_TYPE                | varchar(64)   | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| ENGINE                    | varchar(64)   | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| VERSION                   | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| ROW_FORMAT                | varchar(10)   | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_ROWS                | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| AVG_ROW_LENGTH            | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| DATA_LENGTH               | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| MAX_DATA_LENGTH           | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| INDEX_LENGTH              | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| DATA_FREE                 | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| AUTO_INCREMENT            | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| CREATE_TIME               | datetime      | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| UPDATE_TIME               | datetime      | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| CHECK_TIME                | datetime      | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_COLLATION           | varchar(32)   | NO   |      | utf8_bin |       |
| CHECKSUM                  | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| CREATE_OPTIONS            | varchar(255)  | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TABLE_COMMENT             | varchar(2048) | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TIDB_TABLE_ID             | bigint(21)    | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
| TIDB_ROW_ID_SHARDING_INFO | varchar(255)  | YES  |      | NULL     |       |
+---------------------------+---------------+------+------+----------+-------+
23 rows in set (0.00 sec)

SELECT * FROM tables WHERE table_schema='mysql' AND table_name='user'\G

*************************** 1. row ***************************
            TABLE_CATALOG: def
             TABLE_SCHEMA: mysql
               TABLE_NAME: user
               TABLE_TYPE: BASE TABLE
                   ENGINE: InnoDB
                  VERSION: 10
               ROW_FORMAT: Compact
               TABLE_ROWS: 0
           AVG_ROW_LENGTH: 0
              DATA_LENGTH: 0
          MAX_DATA_LENGTH: 0
             INDEX_LENGTH: 0
                DATA_FREE: 0
           AUTO_INCREMENT: NULL
              CREATE_TIME: 2020-07-05 09:25:51
              UPDATE_TIME: NULL
               CHECK_TIME: NULL
          TABLE_COLLATION: utf8mb4_bin
                 CHECKSUM: NULL
           CREATE_OPTIONS: 
            TABLE_COMMENT: 
            TIDB_TABLE_ID: 5
TIDB_ROW_ID_SHARDING_INFO: NULL
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

The following statements are equivalent:

SELECT table_name FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
  WHERE table_schema = 'db_name'
  [AND table_name LIKE 'wild']

SHOW TABLES
  FROM db_name
  [LIKE 'wild']

The description of columns in the TABLES table is as follows:

TABLE_CATALOG: The name of the catalog which the table belongs to. The value is always def.
TABLE_SCHEMA: The name of the schema which the table belongs to.
TABLE_NAME: The name of the table.
TABLE_TYPE: The type of the table.
ENGINE: The type of the storage engine. The value is currently InnoDB.
VERSION: Version. The value is 10 by default.
ROW_FORMAT: The row format. The value is currently Compact.
TABLE_ROWS: The number of rows in the table in statistics.
AVG_ROW_LENGTH: The average row length of the table. AVG_ROW_LENGTH = DATA_LENGTH / TABLE_ROWS.
DATA_LENGTH: Data length. DATA_LENGTH = TABLE_ROWS * the sum of storage lengths of the columns in the tuple. The replicas of TiKV are not taken into account.
MAX_DATA_LENGTH: The maximum data length. The value is currently 0, which means the data length has no upper limit.
INDEX_LENGTH: The index length. INDEX_LENGTH = TABLE_ROWS * the sum of lengths of the columns in the index tuple. The replicas of TiKV are not taken into account.
DATA_FREE: Data fragment. The value is currently 0.
AUTO_INCREMENT: The current step of the auto- increment primary key.
CREATE_TIME: The time at which the table is created.
UPDATE_TIME: The time at which the table is updated.
CHECK_TIME: The time at which the table is checked.
TABLE_COLLATION: The collation of strings in the table.
CHECKSUM: Checksum.
CREATE_OPTIONS: Creates options.
TABLE_COMMENT: The comments and notes of the table.

Most of the information in the table is the same as MySQL. Only two columns are newly defined by TiDB:

TIDB_TABLE_ID: to indicate the internal ID of a table. This ID is unique in a TiDB cluster.
TIDDB_ROW_ID_SHARDING_INFO: to indicate the sharding type of a table. The possible values are as follows:
- "NOT_SHARDED": the table is not sharded.
- "NOT_SHARDED(PK_IS_HANDLE)": the table that defines an integer Primary Key as its row id is not sharded.
- "PK_AUTO_RANDOM_BITS={bit_number}": the table that defines an integer Primary Key as its row id is sharded because the Primary Key is assigned with AUTO_RANDOM attribute.
- "SHARD_BITS={bit_number}": the table is sharded using SHARD_ROW_ID_BITS={bit_number}.
- NULL: the table is a system table or view, and thus cannot be sharded.