Information schema

In relational databases, the information schema (information_schema) is an ANSI-standard set of read-only views which provide information about all of the tables, views, columns, and procedures in a database. It can be used as a source of the information which some databases make available through non-standard commands, such as:

the SHOW command of MySQL

the DESCRIBE command of Oracle's SQL*Plus

the d command in psql (PostgreSQL's default command-line program).

=> SELECT count(table_name) FROM information_schema.tables; count ------- 99 (1 row) => SELECT column_name, data_type, column_default, is_nullable FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='alpha'; column_name | data_type | column_default | is_nullable -------------+-----------+----------------+------------- foo | integer | | YES bar | character | | YES (2 rows) => SELECT * FROM information_schema.information_schema_catalog_name; catalog_name -------------- johnd (1 row)