How do I list all the columns in a table?

Question

For the various popular database systems, how do you list all the columns in a table?

Answer 1

(5 years laters, for the Honor of PostgreSQL, the most advanced DDBB of the Kingdom)

In PostgreSQL:

\d table_name

Or, using SQL:

select column_name, data_type, character_maximum_length
    from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
    where table_name = 'table_name';

Answer 2

For MS SQL Server:

select * from information_schema.columns where table_name = 'tableName'

Answer 3

SQL Server

To list all the user defined tables of a database:

use [databasename]
select name from sysobjects where type = 'u'

To list all the columns of a table:

use [databasename]
select name from syscolumns where id=object_id('tablename')

Answer 4

Example:

select Table_name as [Table] , column_name as [Column] , Table_catalog as [Database], table_schema as [Schema]  from information_schema.columns
where table_schema = 'dbo'
order by Table_name,COLUMN_NAME

Just my code

Answer 5

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2:

In a query editor, if you highlight the text of table name (ex dbo.MyTable) and hit ALT+F1, you'll get a list of column names, type, length, etc.

ALT+F1 while you've highlighted dbo.MyTable is the equivalent of running EXEC sp_help 'dbo.MyTable' according to this site

I can't get the variations on querying INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS to work, so I use this instead.

Answer 6

Just a slight correction on the others in SQL Server (schema prefix is becoming more important!):

SELECT name
  FROM sys.columns 
  WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.tablename');