HELP Command

Displays help information from the server's help tables. Useful for looking up SQL syntax and command descriptions directly from the client.

Syntax

HELP search_string

Description

The HELP command can be used in any MariaDB client, such as the mariadb command-line client, to get basic syntax help and a short description for most commands and functions.

If you provide an argument to the HELP command, the mariadb client uses it as a search string to access server-side help. The proper operation of this command requires that the help tables in the mysql database be initialized with help topic information.

If there is no match for the search string, the search fails. Use HELP contents to see a list of the help categories:

HELP contents You asked for help about help category: "Contents" For more information, type 'help <item>', where <item> is one of the following categories:  Account Management  Administration  Compound Statements  Data Definition  Data Manipulation  Data Types  Functions  Functions and Modifiers for Use with GROUP BY  Geographic Features  Help Metadata  Language Structure  Plugins  Procedures  Sequences  Table Maintenance  Transactions  User-Defined Functions  Utility

If a search string matches multiple items, MariaDB shows a list of matching topics:

HELP drop Many help items for your request exist. To make a more specific request, please type 'help <item>', where <item> is one of the following topics:  ALTER TABLE  DROP DATABASE  DROP EVENT  DROP FUNCTION  DROP FUNCTION UDF  DROP INDEX  DROP PACKAGE  DROP PACKAGE BODY  DROP PROCEDURE  DROP ROLE  DROP SEQUENCE  DROP SERVER  DROP TABLE  DROP TRIGGER  DROP USER  DROP VIEW

Then you can enter a topic as the search string to see the help entry for that topic.

The help is provided with the MariaDB server and makes use of four help tables found in the mysql database: help_relation, help_topic, help_category and help_keyword. These tables are populated by the mariadb-install-db or fill_help_table.sql scripts.

_{This page is licensed: GPLv2, originally from fill_help_tables.sql}