In MySQL if you want to find out what columns are in a given table, you can describe the table and it will show you the columns and the data types associated with that column.  However if you need to do this for a large number of tables, it can get a bit repetitive.

Connect to MySQL

bash 
mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 12
Server version: 5.1.37 Source distribution

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

Show the Available Databases

text 
mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| TST               |
| mysql              |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Use the TST Database

Our example lives on the TST database.

text 
mysql> use TST;
Database changed

List All Tables on TST

text 
mysql> show tables;
+-------------------+
| Tables_in_TST     |
+-------------------+
| customer          |
| product           |
+-------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Describe the Customer Table

text 
mysql> describe customer;
+-------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field       | Type                  | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| customer_id | mediumint(8) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| first_name  | varchar(30)           | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| last_name   | varchar(30)           | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| email       | varchar(30)           | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+-------------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)

Describe the Product Table

text 
mysql> describe product;
+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field        | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| product_id   | mediumint(8) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| product_name | varchar(100) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Now just wash rinse and repeat for all tables…  OR

The Easy Way

No sense in killing ourselves.  Lets use a tool that does the heavy lifting for us.

bash 
mysqldump --no-data TST -u root
-- MySQL dump 10.13  Distrib 5.1.37, for pc-solaris2.11 (i386)
--
-- Host: localhost    Database: TST
-- ------------------------------------------------------
-- Server version       5.1.37

/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@@CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@@CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION=@@COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40101 SET NAMES utf8 */;
/*!40103 SET @OLD_TIME_ZONE=@@TIME_ZONE */;
/*!40103 SET TIME_ZONE='+00:00' */;
/*!40014 SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0 */;
/*!40014 SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0 */;
/*!40101 SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO' */;
/*!40111 SET @OLD_SQL_NOTES=@@SQL_NOTES, SQL_NOTES=0 */;

--
-- Table structure for table `customer`
--

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `customer`;
/*!40101 SET @saved_cs_client     = @@character_set_client */;
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8 */;
CREATE TABLE `customer` (
`customer_id` mediumint(8) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`first_name` varchar(30) NOT NULL,
`last_name` varchar(30) NOT NULL,
`email` varchar(30) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`customer_id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = @saved_cs_client */;

--
-- Table structure for table `product`
--

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `product`;
/*!40101 SET @saved_cs_client     = @@character_set_client */;
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = utf8 */;
CREATE TABLE `product` (
`product_id` mediumint(8) DEFAULT NULL,
`product_name` varchar(100) DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
/*!40101 SET character_set_client = @saved_cs_client */;
/*!40103 SET TIME_ZONE=@OLD_TIME_ZONE */;

/*!40101 SET SQL_MODE=@OLD_SQL_MODE */;
/*!40014 SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS */;
/*!40014 SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=@OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS */;
/*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_CLIENT */;
/*!40101 SET CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS=@OLD_CHARACTER_SET_RESULTS */;
/*!40101 SET COLLATION_CONNECTION=@OLD_COLLATION_CONNECTION */;
/*!40111 SET SQL_NOTES=@OLD_SQL_NOTES */;

-- Dump completed on 2013-02-05 16:12:23

Now we can spend our time interpreting and understanding the output instead of trying to recurse through every table in the database.