MYISAM_FTDUMP(1)

✨ NAME ✨

myisam_ftdump — bestie, this lil icon displays full-text index information and honestly it's giving microscope energy 🔬💖

(also hi, this is a MariaDB Database System page, page one of one, we're in the MYISAM_FTDUMP(1) section, iykyk 💅)

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

myisam_ftdump [options] tbl_name index_num

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so myisam_ftdump spills all the tea about FULLTEXT indexes in MyISAM tables. it does NOT ask the server nicely — it reads the MyISAM index file directly, which means the one hard rule is: you gotta run it on the server host where the table is located, fr fr. no remote vibes allowed 🙈

and listen — before you use myisam_ftdump, if the server is running you absolutely must issue a FLUSH TABLES statement first. no skipping, bestie, that's the assignment 💅

also heads up: it scans and dumps the entire index, which is not particularly fast. it's giving slow-burn, not speedrun 😭. but lowkey it's fine, because the distribution of words changes infrequently, so it need not be run often. so you're off the hook, slay 🌈

invoke it like this:

shell> myisam_ftdump [options] tbl_name index_num

the tbl_name argument should be the name of a MyISAM table. you can also specify a table by naming its index file — that's the file with the .MYI suffix, iconic 🎀. and if you do not invoke myisam_ftdump in the directory where the table files are located, then the table name or index file name has to be preceded by the path name to the table's database directory. okay??

oh and — index numbers begin with 0. zero. not one. remember it, bestie 🫶

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🌸 EXAMPLE (the main character moment) 🌸

suppose the test database contains a table named mytexttablel that has the following definition:

CREATE TABLE mytexttable
(
  id   INT NOT NULL,
  txt  TEXT NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id),
  FULLTEXT (txt)
);

so the index on id is index 0 and the FULLTEXT index on txt is index 1. if your working directory is the test database directory, invoke myisam_ftdump like this:

shell> myisam_ftdump mytexttable 1

now if the path name to the test database directory is /usr/local/mysql/data/test, you can also specify the table name argument using that path name. super handy when you are not invoking myisam_ftdump in the database directory:

shell> myisam_ftdump /usr/local/mysql/data/test/mytexttable 1

and here's the cute party trick 🎉 — you can use myisam_ftdump to generate a list of index entries in order of frequency of occurrence like this:

shell> myisam_ftdump -c mytexttable 1 | sort -r

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

myisam_ftdump supports the following options, and yes we are listing every single one, no crumbs left behind 🍓

• --help, -h, -? — Display a help message and exit. the "pls explain yourself" button, love that for us ✨
• --count, -c — Calculate per-word statistics (counts and global weights). numbers girlies rise 👑
• --dump, -d — Dump the index, including data offsets and word weights. the full unhinged download 💀
• --length, -l — Report the length distribution. how long are these words, actually 📏
• --stats, -s — Report global index statistics. this is the default operation if no other operation is specified — so if you're like "idk just do the normal thing", this is the normal thing 🫶
• --verbose, -v — Verbose mode. Print more output about what the program does. it literally narrates its own life, main character energy 👑

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📜 COPYRIGHT 📜

Copyright 2007-2008 MySQL AB, 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2010-2025 MariaDB Foundation

This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1335 USA or see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

ngl bestie, the all-caps warranty part is not a vibe, it's a legal thing. don't skip it 🙈

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

For more information, please refer to the MariaDB Documentation, available online at https://mariadb.com/docs/

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🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

MariaDB Foundation (http://www.mariadb.org/).

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okay and that's the whole page, we ate and left no crumbs 💅 this was MariaDB 11.8, dated 5 March 2025, and it lives in the MYISAM_FTDUMP(1) section of the manual — periodt ✨🦋💖