34

is it possible to search a whole database tables ( row and column) to find out a particular string.

I am having a Database named A with about 35 tables,i need to search for the string named "hello" and i dont know on which table this string is saved.Is it possible?

Using MySQL

i am a linux admin and i am not familiar with databases,it would be really helpful if u can explain the query also.

2
  • 1
    See here: stackoverflow.com/a/5350405/330315
    – user1822
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 8:38
  • Adminer & PHPMyAdmin have search feature that searches through all the tables :) PHPMyAdmin even displays the results, Adminer only displays list at first where it was found which is sometimes enough :) - you can still see the results in Adminer if you click on one of the table results :)
    – jave.web
    Commented Jun 24, 2021 at 23:56

12 Answers 12

28
$ mysqldump -pPASSWORD database --extended=FALSE | grep pattern | less -S

More: http://winashwin.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/mysql-search/

9

Back in July 2012 I wrote this post

Query to find and replace text in all tables and fields of a mysql db

It uses the table information_schema.columns to pick up every CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT field and perform a textual REPLACE.

Please look over my old link and use its paradigm to do a search.

As an example, this will create a separate SELECT for each text column in every table

SELECT
    CONCAT('SELECT ',QUOTE(db),',',QUOTE(tb),',',QUOTE(col),',COUNT(1) FieldHasIt
    FROM ',db,'.',tb,' WHERE \`',col,'\`=''',SearchString,''';') SearchSQL
FROM
(
    SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,column_name col FROM information_schema.columns
    WHERE table_schema = 'mydb' AND
    (column_type LIKE 'char(%' OR column_type LIKE 'varchar(%' OR column_type LIKE '%text')
) A,(SELECT 'Hello' SearchString) B;

Create a Giant SQL text file with it. Then, execute that Giant SQL script:

SQL="SELECT CONCAT('SELECT ',QUOTE(db),',',QUOTE(tb),',',"
SQL="${SQL} QUOTE(col),',COUNT(1) FieldHasIt FROM ',db,'.',tb,'"
SQL="${SQL} WHERE \`',col,'\`=''',SearchString,''';') SearchSQL FROM"
SQL="${SQL} (SELECT table_schema db,table_name tb,column_name col FROM"
SQL="${SQL} information_schema.columns WHERE table_schema='store_qa'"
SQL="${SQL} AND (column_type LIKE 'char(%' OR column_type LIKE 'varchar(%'"
SQL="${SQL} OR column_type LIKE '%text')) A,(SELECT 'Hello' SearchString) B;"

mysql -uroot -p... -ANe"${SQL}" > MegaSearch.sql
mysql -uroot -p... -AN < MegaSearch.sql > MegaSearchResults.txt
RESULTS_FOUND=`grep -c "1$" < MegaSearchResults.txt`
echo ${RESULTS_FOUND}
if [ ${RESULTS_FOUND} -gt 0 ] ; then grep "1$" < MegaSearchResults.txt ; fi

The output tells you the Database, Table, and Column the data appears in.

Give it a Try !!!.

EDIT:

CONCAT('SELECT ',QUOTE(db),',',QUOTE(tb),',',QUOTE(col),',COUNT(1) FieldHasIt
        FROM ',db,'.',tb,' WHERE \`',col,'\`=''',SearchString,''';')

SHOULD: add the two back ticks shown below for tables which have a space in the name.

db,'.`',tb,'`',' WHERE
2
  • This solution worked very nicely! Is it necessary to manually copy the initial query into an environment variable line by line? I was able to paste and run the query inside a mysql session, but surely it's possible to also paste that query into a file?
    – Johndt
    Commented Feb 22, 2018 at 21:42
  • @JohnT I I do line-by-line to avoid having to vertically scroll my answer. You can do whichever way is simplest. Commented Feb 22, 2018 at 22:09
8

If you're Linux admin, you should be familiar with the command line, so this one would be handy:

$ mysqldump -u root -proot --skip-extended-insert db_name | grep --color=auto -w foo

Change root/root to your mysql credentials (or use ~/.my.cnf), db_name to your database name and foo for your searching text. Parameter --skip-extended-insert for mysqldump will display each query in separate lines. Parameter --color=auto for grep will highlight your string and -w will match the whole word.

1
  • +1 for raw output with highlighting (I know this thread is really really old). This seems to be the simplest, but most elegant, solution proposed - while still explaining exactly what the command does. +1 +1 Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 12:56
3

Taking another approach that doesn't require building SQL queries, I developed CRGREP as a free opensource command line tool that will grep databases (including MySQL) and supports both simple "fred customer.name" type searches for "fred" in the "name" column of the "customer" table to more complex pattern matching such as "fr?d *.author" for pattern matching against all "author" columns across all tables.

2

You can return all columns from all tables that match any values you're looking for all at once by building off of RolandoMySQLDBA's answer and using PREPARE and EXECUTE to run the query.

-- Your values
SET @table_schema = 'your_table_name';
SET @condition = "LIKE '%your string to search%'";
SET @column_types_regexp = '^((var)?char|(var)?binary|blob|text|enum|set)\\(';

-- Reset @sql_query in case it was used previously
SET @sql_query = '';

-- Build query for each table and merge with previous queries with UNION
SELECT
    -- Use `DISTINCT IF(QUERYBUILDING, NULL, NULL)`
    -- to only select a single null value
    -- instead of selecting the query over and over again as it's built
    DISTINCT IF(@sql_query := CONCAT(
        IF(LENGTH(@sql_query), CONCAT(@sql_query, " UNION "), ""),
        'SELECT ',
            QUOTE(CONCAT('`', `table_name`, '`.`', `column_name`, '`')), ' AS `column`, ',
            'COUNT(*) AS `occurrences` ',
        'FROM `', `table_schema`, '`.`', `table_name`, '` ',
        'WHERE `', `column_name`, '` ', @condition
    ), NULL, NULL) `query`
FROM (
    SELECT
        `table_schema`,
        `table_name`,
        `column_name`
    FROM `information_schema`.`columns`
    WHERE `table_schema` = @table_schema
    AND `column_type` REGEXP @column_types_regexp
) `results`;
select @sql_query;

-- Only return results with at least one occurrence
SET @sql_query = CONCAT("SELECT * FROM (", @sql_query, ") `results` WHERE `occurrences` > 0");

-- Run built query
PREPARE statement FROM @sql_query;
EXECUTE statement;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE statement;
2

If you have phpMyAdmin installed use its 'Search' feature.

Select your DataBase Be sure you do have selected DataBase , not a table, otherwise you'll get a completely different search dialog

  1. Click 'Search' tab
  2. List item Choose the search term you want
  3. Choose the tables to search
1

If you can use a bash - here is a script: It needs a user dbread with pass dbread on the database.

#!/bin/bash
IFS='
'
DBUSER=dbread
DBPASS=dbread
echo -n "Which database do you want to search in (press 0 to see all databases): " 
read DB
echo -n "Which string do you want to search: " 
read SEARCHSTRING
for i in `mysql $DB -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS -e "show tables" | grep -v \`mysql $DB -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS -e "show tables" | head -1\``
do
for k in `mysql $DB -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS -e "desc $i" | grep -v \`mysql $DB -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS -e "desc $i" | head -1\` | grep -v int | awk '{print $1}'`
do
if [ `mysql $DB -u$DBUSER -p$DBPASS -e "Select * from $i where $k='$SEARCHSTRING'" | wc -l` -gt 1 ]
then
echo " Your searchstring was found in table $i, column $k"
fi
done
done

If anyone wants an explanation: http://infofreund.de/?p=1670

1

If you are using MySQL Workbench, right click on the database schema and select "Search Table Data..." then fill out the form. This will search the entire database. When (or if) the results come up, click on the arrow to expand. It will show the schema, table, primary key data, column name and the actual data that matches your search.
Tip: If nothing comes up, try widen your search.
Please note that this is only really useful for searching text (char, varchar and text) data types.

0

Do you have access to phpMyAdmin? It has a search feature for each database.

or use scripting of your choice on the result of (change dbname):

$string = 'mysqldump --compact --skip-extended-insert -u ' . $db_user . ' -p' . $db_password . ' dbname 2>&1 | grep "particular string" 2>&1';
$result = shell_exec ( $string );
0

I focus on a simple template solution for your question implemented in plsql for Oracle database, I hope customizing it on MySql, being simple throw googleing. all you need is to investigate information schema on MySql and replaceing some table name and columns.

In the script: ALL_TAB_COLUMNS is an information schema table containing All Table Columns 'VARCHAR2','NVARCHAR2','NCHAR','CHAR' refers to string column types in Oracle, you have to replace them with equvalents type names of MySql
%hello% is search keyword replace it with any string.

The result will be some or many sql scripts (based on your tables column types) and running them will result your answer
Also performance and time consumption will be another matters.
i hope this will be useful

SELECT 
'SELECT ' || ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME  || ' AS RESULT_FOUND, ' 
|| '''' || ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME ||''''|| ' AS TABLE_NAME, '
|| '''' || ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME ||''''|| ' AS COLUMN_NAME '
|| 'FROM ' || ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.OWNER ||'.'||ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.TABLE_NAME  
|| ' WHERE ' || ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.COLUMN_NAME || ' LIKE ''%hello%''' || ';'
FROM ALL_TAB_COLUMNS 
WHERE 
ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.OWNER = 'SCOTT'
AND 
ALL_TAB_COLUMNS.DATA_TYPE IN ('VARCHAR2','NVARCHAR2','NCHAR','CHAR')
0

There is a nice library for reading all tables, ridona

$database = new ridona\Database('mysql:dbname=database_name;host=127.0.0.1', 'db_user','db_pass');

foreach ($database->tables(['table_name1','table_name2'])->by_entire() as $row) {

  do...

}
0

Use This Trick with One Line of Code

SELECT * FROM `table_name1`,`table_name2` 
WHERE '$data' IN (`column_name1`,`column_name2`,`column_name3`,`column_name4`);

column_name : Type all the columns name in which you search.

table_name : Type all the Table name in which you search.

1
  • This may be practical in very small databases - it's less so if you're trying to locate a value across hundreds of tables and thousands of columns. Based on the wording "whole database" in the original question, I'm assuming this should deal with all tables in the DB.
    – RDFozz
    Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 18:13

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