Thursday, March 3, 2011

What is the equivalent of 'describe table' in MSSQL?

I have a Microsoft SQL database and I want to know what columns and types it has. I'd prefer to do this through a query rather than using a GUI like Enterprise Manager. Is there a way to do this?

From stackoverflow
  • There are a few methods to get metadata about a table:

    sp_help @tablename

    Will return several result sets, describing the table, it's columns and constraints.

    The INFORMATION_SCHEMA views will give you the information you want, though unfortunately you have to query the views and join them manually.

  • You can use the sp_columns stored procedure:

    exec sp_columns MyTable
    
    Jedidja : Thanks - I was about to post the same question with T-SQL instead of MSSQL.
  • Just in case you don't want to use stored proc, here's a simple query version

    select * 
      from information_schema.columns 
     where table_name = 'aspnet_Membership'
     order by ordinal_position
    
  • The trick given by "Vincent Ramdhanie" works perfectly fine. Thanks Vincent for sharing it.

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