Listing out Database Table Names

Ok, for WordPress & WPMU, let me preface this post with saying standard WordPress tables can be found by using the $wpdb object (paste the below code and you might be surprised on what’s available to you).

echo "<pre>"; print_r($wpdb); echo "</pre>";

But, let’s say the plugin you’re working with in WordPress isn’t in the $wpdb object & you still need to grab a list of non-standard tables, I’ve been using the below code to grab the information I need.

class BlogTables {
	function selectNames() {
		global $wpdb;

		$prefix	        = "qdf_"; // other non $table_prefix prefixes
		$sql		= "SHOW TABLES LIKE '".$prefix."%'";
		$avail_tables 	= $wpdb->get_results($sql);

		foreach ($avail_tables as $tables) {
			foreach($tables as $key => $table){
				$blog_tables[] = $table;
			}
		}
		return $blog_tables;
	}
}

You can grab the dirty output from the above code with

$tables_avail = new BlogTables;
$tables_avail->selectNames();

From there, you should be able to use it for whatever it is you need to use it for. If you have a better way of doing things, I’d be interested in knowing.