I would like to query the name of all columns of a table. I found how to do this in:
- Oracle
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
But I need to know: how can this be done in Microsoft SQL Server (2008 in my case)?
I would like to query the name of all columns of a table. I found how to do this in:
But I need to know: how can this be done in Microsoft SQL Server (2008 in my case)?
You can obtain this information and much, much more by querying the Information Schema views.
This sample query:
SELECT *
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = N'Customers'
Can be made over all these DB objects:
You can use the stored procedure sp_columns which would return information pertaining to all columns for a given table. More info can be found here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176077.aspx
You can also do it by a SQL query. Some thing like this should help:
SELECT * FROM sys.columns WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.yourTableName')
Or a variation would be:
SELECT o.Name, c.Name
FROM sys.columns c
JOIN sys.objects o ON o.object_id = c.object_id
WHERE o.type = 'U'
ORDER BY o.Name, c.Name
This gets all columns from all tables, ordered by table name and then on column name.
select *
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
where TABLE_NAME='tableName'
This is better than getting from sys.columns
because it shows DATA_TYPE
directly.
You can use sp_help
in SQL Server 2008.
sp_help <table_name>;
Keyboard shortcut for the above command: select table name (i.e highlight it) and press ALT+F1.
By using this query you get the answer:
select Column_name
from Information_schema.columns
where Table_name like 'table name'
You can write this query to get column name and all details without using INFORMATION_SCHEMA in MySql :
SHOW COLUMNS FROM database_Name.table_name;
--This is another variation used to document a large database for conversion (Edited to --remove static columns)
SELECT o.Name as Table_Name
, c.Name as Field_Name
, t.Name as Data_Type
, t.length as Length_Size
, t.prec as Precision_
FROM syscolumns c
INNER JOIN sysobjects o ON o.id = c.id
LEFT JOIN systypes t on t.xtype = c.xtype
WHERE o.type = 'U'
ORDER BY o.Name, c.Name
--In the left join, c.type is replaced by c.xtype to get varchar types
SELECT name
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('TABLE_NAME')
TABLE_NAME
is your table
SELECT column_name, data_type, character_maximum_length, table_name,ordinal_position, is_nullable
FROM information_schema.COLUMNS WHERE table_name LIKE 'YOUR_TABLE_NAME'
ORDER BY ordinal_position
This SO question is missing the following approach :
-- List down all columns of table 'Logging'
select * from sys.all_columns where object_id = OBJECT_ID('Logging')
Just run this command
EXEC sp_columns 'Your Table Name'
You can try this.This gives all the column names with their respective data types.
desc <TABLE NAME> ;
It will check whether the given the table
is Base Table.
SELECT
T.TABLE_NAME AS 'TABLE NAME',
C.COLUMN_NAME AS 'COLUMN NAME'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES T
INNER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS C ON T.TABLE_NAME=C.TABLE_NAME
WHERE T.TABLE_TYPE='BASE TABLE'
AND T.TABLE_NAME LIKE 'Your Table Name'
you can use this query
SELECT *
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE COLUMN_NAME like N'%[ColumnName]%' and TABLE_NAME = N'[TableName]'
SELECT c.Name
FROM sys.columns c
JOIN sys.objects o ON o.object_id = c.object_id
WHERE o.object_id = OBJECT_ID('TABLE_NAME')
ORDER BY c.Name
One other option which is arguably more intuitive is:
SELECT [name]
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('[yourSchemaType].[yourTableName]')
This gives you all your column names in a single column.
If you care about other metadata, you can change edit the SELECT STATEMENT TO SELECT *
.
SELECT COLUMN_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'name_of_your_table'
SELECT TOP (0) [toID]
,[sourceID]
,[name]
,[address]
FROM [ReportDatabase].[Ticket].[To]
Simple and doesnt require any sys tables
Summarizing the Answers
I can see many different answers and ways to do this but there is the rub in this and that is the objective
.
Yes, the objective. If you want to only know
the column names you can use
SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE 1=0
or
SELECT TOP 0 * FROM my_table
But if you want to use
those columns somewhere or simply say manipulate
them then the quick queries above are not going to be of any use. You need to use
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = N'Customers'
one more way to know some specific columns where we are in need of some similar columns
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE COLUMN_NAME like N'%[ColumnName]%' and TABLE_NAME = N'[TableName]'