Re: Switching from MySQL -- Missing DESCRIBE table, SHOW

On Sun, 2005-10-16 at 17:17 -0400, Gan Uesli Starling wrote:
> But alas, two of the most useful commands appear to be missing:
>
> SHOW TABLES
> DESCRIBE table
...
> I can't believe there is no way for PostgreSQL to tell me what the
> current DB's table structure is via simple SQL queries executed remotely.

You can use the INFORMATION_SCHEMA (which is standard SQL), but in psql
the simplest way is:

  \d+           Show all tables, with descriptions
  \d+ table     Show the definition of the named table (or view), with
                  column descriptions

  \?            Describe briefly all the \ commands in psql

The capabilities of psql are fully described in the manual and in psql's
man page.

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Oliver Elphick                                          olly@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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