This seems quite a trivial question, but developers don’t often know what a MySQL storage engine is and how to determine what storage engine is used for a table.
The first choice is to describe the table with the DESC[RIBE] command. Side Note: people often don’t realize that DESC is a short acceptable version here.
mysql> desc stats; +---------+---------------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +---------+---------------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+ | stat_id | int(10) unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | created | timestamp | NO | | CURRENT_TIMESTAMP | | | version | tinyint(3) unsigned | NO | | NULL | | | referer | varchar(500) | NO | | NULL | | | q | varchar(100) | YES | | NULL | | | uri | varchar(100) | YES | | NULL | | | server | text | NO | | NULL | | | headers | text | YES | | NULL | | +---------+---------------------+------+-----+-------------------+----------------+
Alias, this command does not provide the details of the storage engine.
You need to use the SHOW CREATE TABLE as a means to get a more detailed description including the storage engine.
mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE statsG *************************** 1. row *************************** Table: stats Create Table: CREATE TABLE `stats` ( `stat_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `created` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, `version` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL, `referer` varchar(500) NOT NULL, `q` varchar(100) DEFAULT NULL, `uri` varchar(100) DEFAULT NULL, `server` text NOT NULL, `headers` text, PRIMARY KEY (`stat_id`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=21964 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
As another side note tip, try the G instead of a semicolon (;) which provides a better vertical output.
Another option is to query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES meta data.
mysql> SELECT table_name,engine FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE table_schema=DATABASE(); +--------------+--------+ | table_name | engine | +--------------+--------+ | stats | MyISAM | +--------------+--------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)