Overview
The DESCRIBE statement is used to show columns within a table as well as tables within a database.
It is recommended to be used before creating a new table to avoid tables duplication
Syntax
Below you can find the basic syntax for describing tables within a database as well as columns within tables:
DESCRIBE TABLE table_name;
where:
table_name: name of the table that you want to show
This statement is available to all users with the USAGE privilege on the schema, where the table is located
Examples
To get a better understanding of the DESCRIBE statement, take a look at some examples below:
DESCRIBE Table
In this example, we will figure out the columns of the part table. In order to do so, you need to run the query below:
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 display tables from other schemas, by following the doc
hereDESCRIBE Database
In order to describe the database, you need to execute the following query:
The output for the above code consists of all existing tables from the specified database, as presented below:
+-----------------------------+
| name |
+-----------------------------+
| supplier_scale_1_no_index |
| features |
| orders |
| features2 |
| featurestable |
| featurestable1 |
| featurestable10 |
+-----------------------------+
