SQL - Show Tables (Listing Tables)

Table of content

There are several instances when you need to retrieve a list of tables from your database. This could be done for testing purposes, to identify any existing tables before adding or removing any, or for any other reason. This tutorial will discuss how we can list down all the table in MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle using simple SQL commands.

MySQL - Listing Tables

You can use SQL SHOW TABLES statements in MySQL to list down all the tables available in a selected database.

Syntax

Following is the syntax to list all the tables in SQL in MySQL −

SHOW TABLES;

Example

Following is an example which will list down all the tables from a testDB database.

USE testDB;

SHOW TABLES;

This will display the following output depending on the number of tables available in your database.

Tables_in_testDB
CALENDAR
CUSTOMERS
COMPANIES
SALARY

SQL Server - Listing Tables

SQL Server does not provide SHOW TABLE command in an SQL Server. Instead, we can use the "SELECT" statement to retrieve information about tables in a database. We have three different commands to use with the SELECT statement to list all the tables in a database −

  • sys.tables

  • information_schema.tables

  • sysobjects

The SYS.TABLES View

Following is the syntax to list down all the tables in SQL using the SYS.TABLES view −

SELECT * FROM SYS.TABLES;

Following is the output of the above query −

name object_id principal_id schema_id
CUSTOMER 4195065 NULL 1
ORDERS 68195293 NULL 1
COMPANIES 100195407 NULL 1
SALARY 2107154552 NULL 1

The INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES View

Following is the syntax to list down all the tables in SQL using the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES view −

SELECT table_name, table_type FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;

Following is the output of the above query −

table_name table_type
CUSTOMER BASE TABLE
ORDERS BASE TABLE
COMPANIES BASE TABLE
SALARY BASE TABLE

The SYSOBJECTS View

You can use SYSOBJECTS view to retrieve the information of all the objects created in SQL Server database, including stored procedures, views, system tables and user-defined tables. Following is the basic syntax of using sysobjects view −

SELECT name, id, xtype FROM sysobjects WHERE xtype = 'U';
ValueMeaning
AF Aggregate function (CLR)
C CHECK constraint
D Default or DEFAULT constraint
F FOREIGN KEY constraint
L Log
FN Scalar function
FS Assembly (CLR) scalar-function
FT Assembly (CLR) table-valued function
IF In-lined table-function
IT Internal table
P Stored procedure
PC Assembly (CLR) stored-procedure
PK PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K)
RF Replication filter stored procedure
S System table
SN Synonym
SQ Service queue
TA Assembly (CLR) DML trigger
TF Table function
TR SQL DML Trigger
TT Table type
U User table
UQ UNIQUE constraint (type is K)
V View
X Extended stored procedure

This will produce following result −

name id xtype
CUSTOMER 4195065 U
ORDERS 68195293 U
COMPANIES 100195407 U
SALARY 2107154552 U

Oracle - Listing Tables

There are following three SQL SELECT statements which you can use to list down the tables available in Oracle.

Listing ALL Tables

Following is the SQL SELECT statement which will list down all the available tables in an Oracle Database.

SELECT owner, table_name FROM ALL_TABLES

Listing DBA Tables

Following is the SQL SELECT statement which will list down all the DBA related tables in an Oracle Database.

SELECT owner, table_name FROM DBA_TABLES

Listing USER Tables

Following is the SQL SELECT statement which will list down all the USER created tables in an Oracle Database.

SELECT owner, table_name FROM USER_TABLES

Listing ALL Views

Following is the SQL SELECT statement which will list down all the views available in an Oracle Database.

SELECT view_name FROM ALL_VIEWS;
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