How to do it...

1. Create a MySQL object:

mysql_init(NULL);

2. Establish a connection to the MySQL server running at the specified host. Also, connect to the desired database:

mysql_real_connect(conn, server, user, password, database, 0, NULL, 0)

3. Create an execute SQL statement, comprised of show tables:

mysql_query(conn, "show tables")

4. Save the result of the executing SQL query (that is, the table information of the mysql database) into a resultset:

res = mysql_use_result(conn);

5. Fetch one row at a time from the resultset in a while loop and display only the table name from that row:

while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(res)) != NULL)
     printf("%s \n", row[0]);

6. Free up the memory that is allocated to the resultset:

mysql_free_result(res);

7. Close the opened connection handler:

mysql_close(conn);

The mysql1.c program for displaying all the tables in the built-in mysql database is as follows:

#include <mysql/mysql.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

void main() {
     MYSQL *conn;
     MYSQL_RES *res;
     MYSQL_ROW row;
     char *server = "127.0.0.1";
     char *user = "root";
     char *password = "Bintu2018$";
     char *database = "mysql";
     conn = mysql_init(NULL);
     if (!mysql_real_connect(conn, server,
         user, password, database, 0, NULL, 0)) {
        fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn));
        exit(1);
    }
    if (mysql_query(conn, "show tables")) {
        fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", mysql_error(conn));
        exit(1);
    }
    res = mysql_use_result(conn);
    printf("MySQL Tables in mysql database:\n");
    while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(res)) != NULL)
        printf("%s \n", row[0]);
    mysql_free_result(res);
    mysql_close(conn);
}

Now, let's go behind the scenes to understand the code better.