MySQL :: MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual :: 13.8.2 EXPLAIN Syntax

The DESCRIBE and EXPLAIN statements are synonyms. In practice, the DESCRIBE keyword is more often used to obtain information about table structure, whereas EXPLAIN is used to obtain a query execution plan (that is, an explanation of how MySQL would execute a query).

DESCRIBE City;

EXPLAIN EXTENDED can be used to obtain additional execution plan informatio
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