Technology Answer: select statement to return the column names in a table

Is there any select statement to return the list of columns in the table?

From stackoverflow

SELECT Column_Name + ', '
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Table_Name'

Paul's answer is right for mysql. ON EDIT: and sql server too, apparently. Arrgh. Sorry Paul.

For sql server, you want sys.syscolumns, very similarly to this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/723115/how-do-i-look-at-column-metadata-in-sybase/723577#723577

Paul Rowland : My answer is right for SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 as well. (Dont have SQL2000 to check against)

Adam Robinson : The INFORMATION_SCHEMA schema is the officially supported set of system views for inspecting database, table, column, and object information. syscolumns, sysobjects, etc. are all system objects and Microsoft doesn't guarantee their continued existence or consistent formatting.

Blorgbeard : @Paul, I can verify it works on 2000 as well.
sp_help TableName

Will give you all columns, plus lots of other information.
You can also get column data in SqlServer 2005 using

SELECT column_name 'Column Name', data_type 'Data Type' FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name = 'table name'

Srinivas Dontula. sdonthula@live.com

Technology Answer