Why doesn't this work? - SHOW TABLES NOT LIKE 'history%'

Databases
1

Hi,

Well my question is simple - I want to exclude tables with a certain prefix using this:

SHOW TABLES NOT LIKE ‘history%’

With the prefix obviously being ‘history’. I cannot understand why I get a nasty syntax error - it works when I have just LIKE rather than NOT LIKE but I want all the tables that are NOT like it.

Thanks.

2

SHOW TABLES is not part of sql, it’s a mysql-proprietary command

you just have to live with the fact that they didn’t include NOT in the SHOW TABLES syntax

3

Is there any way in MySQL to do the same thing?

4

do the same thing as what you wanted to do?

yes, if you’re on 5.0+ you can query the “tables” table with a WHERE clause

5

SELECT table_name FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE table_schema = ‘the_db_name’
AND table_name NOT LIKE ‘history%’;