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Overview

Describe statement show columns within a table and tables within a database.

The Describe statement is recommended to use before creating a new table to avoid duplicate tables.

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Syntax

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Describe Database

Below is the basic syntax for describing tables within a database:

DESCRIBE DATABASE;

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Describe Table

Below is the basic syntax for describing columns within a table:

DESCRIBE TABLE table_name;

table_name is the name of the table that you want to show.

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Examples

To get a better understanding of a DESCRIBE statement, take a look at some examples below:

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Case #1: Describe Table

  1. In this example, we will figure out the columns of a part table. Run the query below:
DESCRIBE TABLE part;
  1. As a result, you will get a list of column names, column types, and nullable options from the part table.
+----------------+------------+-------------+-------+----------+ 
| database_name  | table_name |    name     | type  | nullable |
+----------------+------------+-------------+-------+----------+
| public         | part       | p_partkey   | INT   | f        |
| public         | part       | p_name      | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_mfgr      | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_category  | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_brand     | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_color     | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_type      | TEXT  | f        |
| public         | part       | p_size      | INT   | f        |
| public         | part       | p_container | TEXT  | f        |
+----------------+------------+-------------+-------+----------+
The example above shows that the tables reside in the public schema, the default schema in Oxla. You can also have a table from other schemas - click here for more info.

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Case #2: Describe Database

  1. Execute the following query to describe the database:
DESCRIBE DATABASE;
  1. You will retrieve a list of the existing tables in the database as shown below:
+-----------------------------+
| name                        | 
+-----------------------------+
| supplier_scale_1_no_index   | 
| features                    | 
| orders                      | 
| features2                   | 
| featurestable               | 
| featurestable1              | 
| featurestable10             | 
+-----------------------------+
SHOW TABLES statementSHOW NODES statement