SQL statement to get column type

Question

Is there a SQL statement that can return the type of a column in a table?

Answer 1

For SQL Server, this system stored procedure will return all table information, including column datatypes:

exec sp_help YOURTABLENAME

Answer 2

For Spark SQL:

DESCRIBE [db_name.]table_name column_name

Answer 3

For IBM DB2 :

SELECT TYPENAME FROM SYSCAT.COLUMNS WHERE TABSCHEMA='your_schema_name' AND TABNAME='your_table_name' AND COLNAME='your_column_name'

Answer 4

Using TSQL/MSSQL

You can use INTO keyword.

The result of SELECT into a real TABLE

Example: select .... INTO real_table_name

After

sp_help real_table_name

Answer 5

In my case I needed to get the data type for Dynamic SQL (Shudder!) anyway here is a function that I created that returns the full data type. For example instead of returning 'decimal' it would return DECIMAL(18,4): dbo.GetLiteralDataType

Answer 6

Using SQL Server:

SELECT DATA_TYPE 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE 
     TABLE_NAME = 'yourTableName' AND 
     COLUMN_NAME = 'yourColumnName'