MySQL command to show list of databases on server

Task: Mysql list databases

mysql is a simple command-line tool. mysql is command line and it is very easy to use. Invoke it from the prompt of your command interpreter as follows:
$ mysql
Sample outputs:

mysql>

You may need to provide mysql username, password and hostname, use:
$ mysql --user=your-user-name --password=your-password
OR
$ mysql -u your-user-name -p'Your-password' -h your-hostname

To list database type the following command at mysql prompot:

mysql> show databases;
Output:

+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
+--------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

In this sample output information_schema and mysql are name of databases. To use database and to list available tables type the following two commands:
mysql> use mysql;
Sample output:

Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed

Now list tables, run:
mysql> show tables;
Sample outputs:

+---------------------------+
| Tables_in_mysql           |
+---------------------------+
| columns_priv              |
| db                        |
| func                      |
| help_category             |
| help_keyword              |
| help_relation             |
| help_topic                |
| host                      |
| proc                      |
| procs_priv                |
| tables_priv               |
| time_zone                 |
| time_zone_leap_second     |
| time_zone_name            |
| time_zone_transition      |
| time_zone_transition_type |
| user                      |
+---------------------------+
17 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Shell one liner

Use the following one liner to get the same information:

mysql -u root -p -e 'show databases;'

GUI tools

Since you are new to MySQL, it is better to use GUI tools. Please refer the previous article about “GUI Tools for managing MySQL databases server“.