Creating an SQL table from another table

I've been stuggling on and have got an Apache server running, along with PHP and MySQL on XP Home. I created a database, but need to decrypt this bit of advice

$ mysql test < tables.my.sql where

test is the name of my database and tables.my.sql is supplied. I think it means it's trying to create predefined tables within my database from the supplied table. I'm not sure exactly what to type in. SQl 4.0.21. Anybody help ?

 

Have you tried it? Des it give you an error?

 

Tearing my hair out and just tried it outside of Mysql and it just worked a treat or at least didn't give an error. Just have to work out how to list the structure of the database and its tables.