Listing All Culumns - getColumns()

This section describes how to get a list of all columns in a table or a view through the DatabaseMetaData object.

If you want list all columns in a table, you can use the DatabaseMetaData method: getColumns(). Input parameters are:

The output is captured in a ResultSet object with the following fields:

The following sample program displays all columns in the Customer table:

/* ListColumns.java
 * Copyright (c) HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
import java.sql.*;
public class ListColumns {
  public static void main(String [] args) {
    Connection con = null;
    try {

      con = DriverManager.getConnection(
          "jdbc:sqlserver://localhost\\SQLEXPRESS;"
        + "user=herong;password=T0pSecret;"
        + "database=AdventureWorks2019");

      DatabaseMetaData meta = con.getMetaData();
      ResultSet res = meta.getColumns(null, null, "Customer", null);
      System.out.println("List of columns: ");
      while (res.next()) {
         System.out.println(
           "  "+res.getString("TABLE_SCHEM")
           + ", "+res.getString("TABLE_NAME")
           + ", "+res.getString("COLUMN_NAME")
           + ", "+res.getString("TYPE_NAME")
           + ", "+res.getInt("COLUMN_SIZE")
           + ", "+res.getInt("NULLABLE"));
      }
      res.close();

      con.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

If you run this program, you will get:

herong> java -cp .;mssql-jdbc-9.4.1.jre16.jar ListColumns.java

List of columns:
  Sales, Customer, CustomerID, int identity, 10, 0
  Sales, Customer, PersonID, int, 10, 1
  Sales, Customer, StoreID, int, 10, 1
  Sales, Customer, TerritoryID, int, 10, 1
  Sales, Customer, AccountNumber, varchar, 10, 0
  Sales, Customer, rowguid, uniqueidentifier, 36, 0
  Sales, Customer, ModifiedDate, datetime, 23, 0

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) Introduction

 JDK (Java SE) Installation

 Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition

 Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - Query Statements and Result Sets

Microsoft JDBC Driver - DatabaseMetaData Object

 Commonly Used DatabaseMetaData Methods

 Getting Database Server and Driver Info

 Listing All Databases - getCatalogs()

 Listing All Schemas - getSchemas()

 Listing All Tables - getTables()

Listing All Culumns - getColumns()

 Listing All Stored Procedures - getProcedures()

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DDL Statements

 Microsoft JDBC Driver - DML Statements

 SQL Server - PreparedStatement

 SQL Server CLOB (Character Large Object) - TEXT

 SQL Server BLOB (Binary Large Object) - BLOB

 Using Connection Pool with JDBC

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - Flat Text Files

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS Access

 JDBC-ODBC Bridge Driver - MS SQL Server

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB