DESCRIBE statement is used to show the structure of a table:
DESCRIBE <Table Name>;
or
DESC <Table Name>;
For example:
mysql> describe department;
+-----------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-----------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| dept_id | varchar(3) | NO | PRI | NULL | |
| dept_name | varchar(30) | NO | | NULL | |
| location | varchar(30) | YES | | NULL | |
+-----------+-------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)
mysql>