[mysql] Search text in fields in every table of a MySQL database

I want to search in all fields from all tables of a MySQL database a given string, possibly using syntax as:

SELECT * FROM * WHERE * LIKE '%stuff%'

Is it possible to do something like this?

I used Union to string together queries. Don't know if it's the most efficient way, but it works.

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE name LIKE '%Bob%' Union
SELCET * FROM table2 WHERE name LIKE '%Bob%';

MySQL Workbench

Here are some instructions.

Download and install MSQL Workbench.

https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/

When installing, it might require you to install Visual Studio C++ Redistributable. You can get it here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

x64: vc_redist.x64.exe (for 64 bit Windows)

When you open MySQL Workbench, you will have to enter your host name, user and password.

There is a Schemas tab on the side menu bar, click on the Schemas tab, then double click on a database to select the database you want to search.

Then go to menu Database - Search Data, and enter the text you are searching for, click on Start Search.

HeidiSql

Download and install HeidiSql https://www.heidisql.com/download.php

Enter your hostname, user and password.

Hit Ctrl+Shift+F to search text.

Although this question is old , here is how you can do it if you are using mysql workbench 6.3. ( Most likely it also works for other versions)

Right click your schema and "Search table data" , enter your value and hit "Start Search". Thats it.

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()->by_entire() as $row) {

....do

}

You could use

SHOW TABLES;

Then get the columns in those tables (in a loop) with

SHOW COLUMNS FROM table;

and then with that info create many many queries which you can also UNION if you need.

But this is extremely heavy on the database. Specially if you are doing a LIKE search.

I don't know if this is only in the recent versions, but right clicking on the Tables option in the Navigator pane pops up an option called Search Table Data. This opens up a search box where you fill in the search string and hit search.

You do need to select the table you want to search in on the left pane. But if you hold down shift and select like 10 tables at a time, MySql can handle that and return results in seconds.

For anyone that is looking for better options! :)

In case 23 answers is not enough, here are 2 more... Depending on database structure and content, you may find one them to actually be a quick and simple solution.

For fans of shell one-liners, here is a long one (actually on 2 lines to use variables):

cmd='mysql -u Username -pYour_Password -D Your_Database' # <-- Adapt this

$cmd -s -e 'SHOW TABLES' | while read table; do echo "=== $table ==="; $cmd -B -s -e "SELECT * FROM $table" | grep 'Your_Search'; done

Or on multiple lines to make it more readable:

$cmd -s -e 'SHOW TABLES' \
| while read table; do
    echo "=== $table ===";
    $cmd -B -s -e "SELECT * FROM $table" \
    | grep 'Your_Search';
  done

• -s (--silent) is to suppress the column name headers

• -B (--batch) escapes special characters like newlines, so we get the whole record when using grep

And for Perl fans, this will let you use regular expressions:

# perl -MDBI -le '($db,$u,$p)=@ARGV; $dbh=DBI->connect("dbi:mysql:dbname=$db",$u,$p); foreach $table ($dbh->tables()) {print "$table\n"; foreach $r ($dbh->selectall_array("SELECT * FROM $table")) {$_=join("\t", @$r); print $_ if (/Your_Regex/);}}' Your_Database Username Your_Password

Which in a "real" Perl script could be something like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use open qw(:std :utf8);

use DBI;

my $db_host  = 'localhost';
my $db       = 'Your_Database';
my $db_user  = 'Username';
my $db_pass  = 'Your_Password';

my $search    = qr/Your_regex_Search/;


# https://metacpan.org/pod/DBD::mysql
my $dbh = DBI->connect( "dbi:mysql:dbname=$db;host=$db_host", $db_user, $db_pass,
                        { mysql_enable_utf8mb4 => 1 }
) or die "Can't connect: $DBI::errstr\n";


foreach my $table ( $dbh->tables() ) {
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT * FROM $table")
        or die "Can't prepare: ", $dbh->errstr;

    $sth->execute
        or die "Can't execute: ", $sth->errstr;

    my @results;

    while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow()) {
        local $_ = join("\t", @row);
        if ( /$search/ ) {
            push @results, $_;
        }
    }

    $sth->finish;

    next unless @results;

    print "*** TABLE $table :\n",
          join("\n---------------\n", @results),
          "\n" . "=" x 20 . "\n";
}

$dbh->disconnect;

I have done this using HeidiSQL. It's not easy to find but by pressing Ctrl+Shift+F it displays the "table tools" dialogue. Then select what you want to search (Full database to single table) and enter the "Text to find" value and click "Find". I found it surprisingly fast (870MiB db in less than a minute)

This is the simplest query to retrive all Columns and Tables

SELECT * FROM information_schema.`COLUMNS` C WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'YOUR_DATABASE'

All the tables or those with specific string in name could be searched via Search tab in phpMyAdmin.

Have Nice Query... \^.^/

PHP function:

function searchAllDB($search){
    global $mysqli;

    $out = "";

    $sql = "show tables";
    $rs = $mysqli->query($sql);
    if($rs->num_rows > 0){
        while($r = $rs->fetch_array()){
            $table = $r[0];
            $out .= $table.";";
            $sql_search = "select * from ".$table." where ";
            $sql_search_fields = Array();
            $sql2 = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM ".$table;
            $rs2 = $mysqli->query($sql2);
            if($rs2->num_rows > 0){
                while($r2 = $rs2->fetch_array()){
                    $column = $r2[0];
                    $sql_search_fields[] = $column." like('%".$search."%')";
                }
                $rs2->close();
            }
            $sql_search .= implode(" OR ", $sql_search_fields);
            $rs3 = $mysqli->query($sql_search);
            $out .= $rs3->num_rows."\n";
            if($rs3->num_rows > 0){
                $rs3->close();
            }
        }
        $rs->close();
    }

    return $out;
}

i got this to work. you just need to change the variables

$query ="SELECT `column_name` FROM `information_schema`.`columns` WHERE `table_schema`='" . $_SESSION['db'] . "' AND `table_name`='" . $table . "' ";
$stmt = $dbh->prepare($query);
$stmt->execute(); 
$columns = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);       

$query="SELECT name FROM `" . $database . "`.`" . $table . "` WHERE ( ";
foreach ( $columns as $column ) {
    $query .=" CONVERT( `" . $column['column_name'] . "` USING utf8 ) LIKE '%" . $search . "%' OR ";
}
$query = substr($query, 0, -3);
$query .= ")";

echo $query . "<br>";
$stmt=$dbh->prepare($query);
$stmt->execute();
$results = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
echo "<pre>";
print_r ($results );
echo "</pre>";

I also did my own mysql crawler to search some wordpress configuration, was unable to find it in both the interface and database, and database dumps were too heavy and unreadable. I must say I can't do without it now.

It works like the one from @Olivier, but it manages exotic database / table names and is LIKE-joker safe.

<?php

$database = 'database';
$criteria = '*iemblo'; // you can use * and ? as jokers

$dbh = new PDO("mysql:host=127.0.0.1;dbname={$database};charset=utf8", 'root', '');
$dbh->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);

$tables = $dbh->query("SHOW TABLES");
while (($table = $tables->fetch(PDO::FETCH_NUM)) !== false)
{
    $fields = $dbh->prepare("SELECT COLUMN_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = ? AND TABLE_NAME = ?");
    $fields->execute(array ($database, $table[0]));

    $ors = array ();
    while (($field = $fields->fetch(PDO::FETCH_NUM)) !== false)
    {
        $ors[] = str_replace("`", "``", $field[0]) . " LIKE REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(:search, '\\\\', '\\\\\\\\'), '%', '\\%'), '_', '\\_'), '*', '%'), '?', '_')";
    }

    $request = 'SELECT * FROM ';
    $request .= str_replace("`", "``", $table[0]);
    $request .= ' WHERE ';
    $request .= implode(' OR ', $ors);
    $rows = $dbh->prepare($request);

    $rows->execute(array ('search' => $criteria));

    $count = $rows->rowCount();
    if ($count == 0)
    {
        continue;
    }

    $str = "Table '{$table[0]}' contains {$count} rows matching '{$criteria}'.";
    echo str_repeat('-', strlen($str)), PHP_EOL;
    echo $str, PHP_EOL;
    echo str_repeat('-', strlen($str)), PHP_EOL;

    $counter = 1;
    while (($row = $rows->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) !== false)
    {
        $col = 0;
        $title = "Row #{$counter}:";
        echo $title;
        foreach ($row as $column => $value)
        {
            echo
            (($col++ > 0) ? str_repeat(' ', strlen($title) + 1) : ' '),
            $column, ': ',
            trim(preg_replace('!\s+!', ' ', str_replace(array ("\r", "\t", "\n"), array ("", "", " "), $value))),
            PHP_EOL;
        }
        echo PHP_EOL;
        $counter++;
    }
}

Running this script could output something like:

---------------------------------------------------
Table 'customers' contains 1 rows matching '*iemblo'.
---------------------------------------------------
Row #1: email_client: [email protected]
        numero_client_compta: C05135
        nom_client: Tiemblo
        adresse_facturation_1: 151, My Street
        adresse_facturation_2: 
        ville_facturation: Nantes
        code_postal_facturation: 44300
        pays_facturation: FR
        numero_tva_client: 
        zone_geographique: UE
        prenom_client: Alain
        commentaires: 
        nom_societe: 
        email_facturation: [email protected]

This is the simple way that's i know. Select your DB in PHPMyAdmin, and go to the "Search" tab and write what you want to find and where you will searching for. Select all tables if you will search the words from all tables. Then "GO" and look the result.

I modified the PHP answer of Olivier a bit to:

• print out the results in which the string was found
• omit tables without results
• also show output if column names match the search input

• show total number of results

  function searchAllDB($search){
      global $mysqli;
  
      $out = "";
      $total = 0;
      $sql = "SHOW TABLES";
      $rs = $mysqli->query($sql);
      if($rs->num_rows > 0){
          while($r = $rs->fetch_array()){
              $table = $r[0];
              $sql_search = "select * from ".$table." where ";
              $sql_search_fields = Array();
              $sql2 = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM ".$table;
              $rs2 = $mysqli->query($sql2);
              if($rs2->num_rows > 0){
                  while($r2 = $rs2->fetch_array()){
                      $colum = $r2[0];
                      $sql_search_fields[] = $colum." like('%".$search."%')";
                      if(strpos($colum,$search))
                      {
                          echo "FIELD NAME: ".$colum."\n";
                      }
                  }
                  $rs2->close();
              }
              $sql_search .= implode(" OR ", $sql_search_fields);
              $rs3 = $mysqli->query($sql_search);
              if($rs3 && $rs3->num_rows > 0)
              {
                  $out .= $table.": ".$rs3->num_rows."\n";
                  if($rs3->num_rows > 0){
                      $total += $rs3->num_rows;
                      $out.= print_r($rs3->fetch_all(),1);
                      $rs3->close();
                  }
              }
          }
          $out .= "\n\nTotal results:".$total;
          $rs->close();
      }
      return $out;
  }
  

If you are avoiding stored procedures like the plague, or are unable to do a mysql_dump due to permissions, or running into other various reasons.

I would suggest a three-step approach like this:

1) Where this query builds a bunch of queries as a result set.

# =================
# VAR/CHAR SEARCH
# =================
# BE ADVISED USE ANY OF THESE WITH CAUTION
# DON'T RUN ON YOUR PRODUCTION SERVER 
# ** USE AN ALTERNATE BACKUP **

SELECT 
    CONCAT('SELECT * FROM ', A.TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', A.TABLE_NAME, 
           ' WHERE ', A.COLUMN_NAME, ' LIKE \'%stuff%\';') 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS A
WHERE 
            A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'mysql' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'innodb' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'performance_schema' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'information_schema'
AND     
        (
            A.DATA_TYPE LIKE '%text%'
        OR  
            A.DATA_TYPE LIKE '%char%'
        )
;

.

# =================
# NUMBER SEARCH
# =================
# BE ADVISED USE WITH CAUTION

SELECT 
    CONCAT('SELECT * FROM ', A.TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', A.TABLE_NAME, 
           ' WHERE ', A.COLUMN_NAME, ' IN (\'%1234567890%\');') 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS A
WHERE 
            A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'mysql' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'innodb' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'performance_schema' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'information_schema'
AND     A.DATA_TYPE IN ('bigint','int','smallint','tinyint','decimal','double')
;

.

# =================
# BLOB SEARCH
# =================
# BE ADVISED THIS IS CAN END HORRIFICALLY IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
# YOU SHOULD KNOW IF YOU HAVE FULL TEXT INDEX ON OR NOT
# MISUSE AND YOU COULD CRASH A LARGE SERVER
SELECT 
    CONCAT('SELECT CONVERT(',A.COLUMN_NAME, ' USING utf8) FROM ', A.TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', A.TABLE_NAME, 
           ' WHERE CONVERT(',A.COLUMN_NAME, ' USING utf8) IN (\'%someText%\');') 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS A
WHERE 
            A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'mysql' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'innodb' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'performance_schema' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'information_schema'
AND     A.DATA_TYPE LIKE '%blob%'
;

Results should look like this:

2) You can then just Right Click and use the Copy Row (tab-separated)

3) Paste results in a new query window and run to your heart's content.

Detail: I exclude system schema's that you may not usually see in your workbench unless you have the option Show Metadata and Internal Schemas checked.

I did this to provide a quick way to ANALYZE an entire HOST or DB if needed or to run OPTIMIZE statements to support performance improvements.

I'm sure there are different ways you may go about doing this but here’s what works for me:

-- ========================================== DYNAMICALLY FIND TABLES AND CREATE A LIST OF QUERIES IN THE RESULTS TO ANALYZE THEM
SELECT CONCAT('ANALYZE TABLE ', TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', TABLE_NAME, ';') FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'dbname';

-- ========================================== DYNAMICALLY FIND TABLES AND CREATE A LIST OF QUERIES IN THE RESULTS TO OPTIMIZE THEM
SELECT CONCAT('OPTIMIZE TABLE ', TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', TABLE_NAME, ';') FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'dbname';

Tested On MySQL Version: 5.6.23

WARNING: DO NOT RUN THIS IF:

1. You are concerned with causing Table-locks (keep an eye on your client-connections)

2. You are unsure about what you are doing.

3. You are trying to anger you DBA. (you may have people at your desk with the quickness.)

Cheers, Jay ;-]

I am use HeidiSQL is a useful and reliable tool designed for web developers using the popular MySQL server.

In HeidiSQL you can push shift + ctrl + f and you can find text on the server in all tables. This option is very usefully.

I built on a previous answer and have this, some extra padding just to be able to conveniently join all the output:

SELECT 
CONCAT('SELECT ''',A.TABLE_NAME, '-' ,A.COLUMN_NAME,''' FROM ', A.TABLE_SCHEMA, '.', A.TABLE_NAME, 
       ' WHERE ', A.COLUMN_NAME, ' LIKE \'%Value%\' UNION')
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS A
WHERE 
        A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'mysql' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'innodb' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'performance_schema' 
AND     A.TABLE_SCHEMA != 'information_schema'
UNION SELECT 'SELECT '''

-- for exact match use: A.COLUMN_NAME, ' LIKE \'Value\' instead

First you run this, then paste in and run the result (no editing) and it will display all the table names and columns where the value is used.

You could do an SQLDump of the database (and its data) then search that file.

This solution
a) is only MySQL, no other language needed, and
b) returns SQL results, ready for processing!

#Search multiple database tables and/or columns
#Version 0.1 - JK 2014-01
#USAGE: 1. set the search term @search, 2. set the scope by adapting the WHERE clause of the `information_schema`.`columns` query
#NOTE: This is a usage example and might be advanced by setting the scope through a variable, putting it all in a function, and so on...

#define the search term here (using rules for the LIKE command, e.g % as a wildcard)
SET @search = '%needle%';

#settings
SET SESSION group_concat_max_len := @@max_allowed_packet;

#ini variable
SET @sql = NULL;

#query for prepared statement
SELECT
    GROUP_CONCAT("SELECT '",`TABLE_NAME`,"' AS `table`, '",`COLUMN_NAME`,"' AS `column`, `",`COLUMN_NAME`,"` AS `value` FROM `",TABLE_NAME,"` WHERE `",COLUMN_NAME,"` LIKE '",@search,"'" SEPARATOR "\nUNION\n") AS col
INTO @sql
FROM `information_schema`.`columns`
WHERE TABLE_NAME IN
(
    SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM `information_schema`.`columns`
    WHERE
        TABLE_SCHEMA IN ("my_database")
        && TABLE_NAME IN ("my_table1", "my_table2") || TABLE_NAME LIKE "my_prefix_%"
);

#prepare and execute the statement
PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

Even if the following proposal should not be considered as a final solution you can achieve the goal by doing something like this:

SET SESSION group_concat_max_len = 1000000;
SET @search = 'Text_To_Search';

DROP table IF EXISTS table1;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE table1 AS 
(SELECT 
    CONCAT('SELECT \'',TABLE_NAME,'\' as \'table_name\',\'',COLUMN_NAME,'\' as \'column_name\',CONVERT(count(*),char) as \'matches\' FROM `',
    TABLE_NAME,'` where `',COLUMN_NAME,'` like \'%',@search,'%\' UNION ') as 'query'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'db_name' limit 1000000);

set @query = (SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(t1.`query` SEPARATOR '') as 'final_query' from table1 t1 limit 1);
set @query = (SELECT SUBSTRING(@query, 1, length(@query) - 7));

PREPARE stmt FROM @query;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

Please remember that:

1. Options: group_concat_max_len and limit 1000000 not always are needed, it will depends of your server/IDE configuration. Just in case I added them.

2. After executing this you will get a 3 column response: [table_name], [column_name], [matches]

3. Column 'matches' is the number of occurrences in the given table/column.

4. This query is very fast.

DISCLAIMER: It would be useful only for personal use, in other words please don't use it in a production system, because it is sensitive to SQL Injection attacks given that the search parameter is concatenated with other strings. If you want to create a prod. ready function, then you will need to create a store procedure with a LOOP.

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

• Select your DB
• Be sure you do have a DB selected (i.e. not a table, otherwise you'll get a completely different search dialog)
• Click 'Search' tab
• Choose the search term you want
• Choose the tables to search

I have used this on up to 250 table/10GB databases (on a fast server) and the response time is nothing short of amazing.

Using MySQL Workbench it's easy to select several tables and run a search for text in all those tables of the DB ;-)

Here is my solution for this

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS findAll;
CREATE PROCEDURE `findAll`( IN `tableName` VARCHAR( 28 ) , IN `search` TEXT )
BEGIN
       DECLARE finished INT DEFAULT FALSE ;
       DECLARE columnName VARCHAR ( 28 ) ;
       DECLARE stmtFields TEXT ;
       DECLARE columnNames CURSOR FOR
              SELECT DISTINCT `COLUMN_NAME` FROM `information_schema`.`COLUMNS`
              WHERE `TABLE_NAME` = tableName ORDER BY `ORDINAL_POSITION` ;
       DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET finished = TRUE;
       SET stmtFields = '' ;
       OPEN columnNames ;
       readColumns: LOOP
              FETCH columnNames INTO columnName ;
              IF finished THEN
                     LEAVE readColumns ;
              END IF;
              SET stmtFields = CONCAT(
                     stmtFields , IF ( LENGTH( stmtFields ) > 0 , ' OR' , ''  ) ,
                     ' `', tableName ,'`.`' , columnName , '` REGEXP "' , search , '"'
              ) ;
       END LOOP;
       SET @stmtQuery := CONCAT ( 'SELECT * FROM `' , tableName , '` WHERE ' , stmtFields ) ;
       PREPARE stmt FROM @stmtQuery ;
       EXECUTE stmt ;
       CLOSE columnNames ;
END;