How MySQL executes queries is one of the major factors of database performance. You can verify the MySQL execution plan using the EXPLAIN command. Starting from MySQL 5.7.2, you can use EXPLAIN to examine queries currently executing in other sessions. EXPLAIN FORMAT=JSON gives detailed information.
The explain plan
How to do it...
Let's get into the details.
Using EXPLAIN
The explain plan gives information on how the optimizer is going to execute the query. You just need to prefix the EXPLAIN keyword to the query:
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT dept_name...