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

Question

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.

Answer 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:

• C – computed column
• D – default
• F – SQLJ function
• L – log
• N – partition condition
• P – Transact-SQL or SQLJ procedure
• PR – prepare objects (created by Dynamic SQL)
• R – rule
• RI – referential constraint
• S – system table
• TR – trigger
• U – user table
• V – view
• XP – extended stored procedure

List of columns in a table:

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

Answer 2

If Sybase is SQL-92 compliant then this information is stored within the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables.

So the following will give you a list of tables and views in any SQL-92 compliant database

SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

If you want to use a command line program, but are not restricted to using SQL, you can use SchemaCrawler. SchemaCrawler is open source, and can produce files in plain text, CSV, or (X)HTML formats.

Answer 5

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