How to retrieve table names in a mysql database with Python and MySQLdb?

Question

I have an SQL database and am wondering what command you use to just get a list of the table names within that database.

Answer 1

To be a bit more complete:

import MySQLdb  connection = MySQLdb.connect(                 host = 'localhost',                 user = 'myself',                 passwd = 'mysecret')  # create the connection  cursor = connection.cursor()     # get the cursor   cursor.execute("USE mydatabase") # select the database  cursor.execute("SHOW TABLES")    # execute 'SHOW TABLES' (but data is not returned) 

now there are two options:

tables = cursor.fetchall()       # return data from last query 

or iterate over the cursor:

 for (table_name,) in cursor:         print(table_name) 

Answer 2

SHOW tables

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