There are multiple ways of retrieve table information. Few
days ago I was desperately looking for an Equivalent Command to Oracle command
of 'DESC' OR 'DESCRIBE' in SQL SERVER because I badly wanted to get some
information about an existing database. This post mainly focus on describing MS
SQL Server table using sp_columns and ‘DESCRIBE’ command of Oracle which
retrieves column information for the specified table.
For an instance, Employee table includes information like
table name, table owner, details about columns, and its physical storage size
information referred to as metadata.
These kind of information of a table can retrieves
by using the DESCRIBE command of Oracle.
Syntax- Oracle:
- ¿ DESC[RIBE] <SCHEMA>.tablename
DESCRIBE key word can be
shortened to DESC and schema can be omitted.
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Describing
EMPLOYEE table using DESCRIBE command in Oracle
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Syntax- SQL SERVER:
- EXEC sp_columns @table_name = ‘EMPLOYEE’;
Above
catalog stored procedure returns column information for the EMPLOYEE
table also has ability to specifically mention the object owner of the table
as well. If you want to retrieve only one column of catalog information you can
simply specified as follows,
