Q:

if table does not exist execute a long query

I am using MySQL 5.0+ and I am trying to execute a big list of commands if a table does not exist. So I would like to have:
if not exist table
then
10000 line query that creates and populates the table with a lot of entries.
end if

The only problem is that I have been searching and so far I found out that MySQL does not support such a feature.
At the current moment I have:
IF NOT EXISTS `profiles`
THEN
    A LOT OF QUERIES;
END IF;

For some reason it keeps on giving me error saying syntax is wrong on line 1.
So I was wondering if anyone would happen to have a better idea as to how go about approaching this problem, or how to fix it.

A:

Addding on to code from bfavaretto, if you do have information_schema.tables, try something like this:
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'databasename'
AND table_name = 'tablename')
do your big long create table stuff

