From a Sybase Database, how I can get table description ( field names and types)?

问题:

I have access to command line isql and I like to get Meta-Data of all the tables of a given database, possibly in a formatted file. How I can achieve that?

Thanks.

回答1:

Check sysobjects and syscolumns tables.

Here is a diagram of Sybase system tables.

List of all user tables:

SELECT * FROM sysobjects WHERE type = 'U'

You can change 'U' to other objects:

List of columns in a table:

SELECT sc.*  FROM syscolumns sc INNER JOIN sysobjects so ON sc.id = so.id WHERE so.name = 'my_table_name'

回答2:

sp_help is what you're looking for.

From Sybase online documentation on the sp_help system procedure:

Description

Reports information about a database object (any object listed in sysobjects) and about system or user-defined datatypes, as well as computed columns and function-based indexes. Column displays optimistic_index_lock.

Syntax

sp_help [objname]

[...]

Here is the (partial) output for the publishers table (pasted from Using sp_help on database objects):

Name               Owner        Object_type     Create_date  ----------------   -----------  -------------   ------------------------------ publishers         dbo          user table      Nov 9 2004 9:57AM  (1 row affected) Column_name Type     Length   Prec  Scale   Nulls   Default_name   Rule_name ----------- -------  ------   ----- ------- ------- -------------- ----------  pub_id      char          4    NULL  NULL        0  NULL           pub_idrule pub_name    varchar      40    NULL  NULL        1  NULL           NULL city        varchar      20    NULL  NULL        1  NULL           NULL state       char          2    NULL  NULL        1  NULL           NULL Access_Rule_name    Computed_Column_object     Identity ------------------- -------------------------  ------------ NULL                NULL                                  0 NULL                NULL                                  0 NULL                NULL                                  0 NULL                NULL                                  0

Still quoting Using sp_help on database objects:

If you execute sp_help without supplying an object name, the resulting report shows each object in sysobjects, along with its name, owner, and object type. Also shown is each user-defined datatype in systypes and its name, storage type, length, whether null values are allowed, and any defaults or rules bound to it. The report also notes if any primary or foreign key columns have been defined for a table or view.

回答3:

Sybase IQ:

describe table_name;

回答4:

     SELECT DB_NAME() TABLE_CATALOG, NULL TABLE_SCHEMA, so.name TABLE_NAME, sc.name COLUMN_NAME, sc.colid ORDINAL_POSITION, NULL COLUMN_DEFAULT, CASE WHEN st.allownulls=1 THEN 'YES'  ELSE 'NO' END IS_NULLABLE, st.name DATA_TYPE, CASE WHEN st.name like '%char%' THEN st.length END CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH, CASE WHEN st.name like '%char%' THEN st.length END*2 CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH, CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.length END NUMERIC_MAXIMUM_LENGTH, CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.prec END NUMERIC_PRECISION, NULL NUMERIC_PRECISION_RADIX, CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.scale END NUMERIC_SCALE, CASE WHEN st.name in ('datetime') THEN st.prec END DATETIME_PRECISION, NULL CHARACTER_SET_CATALOG, NULL CHARACTER_SET_SCHEMA, NULL COLLATION_CATALOG, NULL COLLATION_SCHEMA, NULL DOMAIN_CATALOG, NULL DOMAIN_SCHEMA, NULL DOMAIN_NAME FROM  sysobjects so INNER JOIN  syscolumns sc ON sc.id = so.id inner join systypes st on st.usertype = sc.usertype  WHERE so.name = 'TableName'

回答5:

sp_tables will also work in isql. It gives you the list of tables in the current database.

回答6:

You can search for column in all tables in database using:

SELECT so.name  FROM sysobjects so INNER JOIN syscolumns sc ON so.id = sc.id  WHERE sc.name = 'YOUR_COLUMN_NAME'

回答7:

When finding user table, in case if want the table owner name also, you can use the following:

select