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Asked: 2026-05-17T00:49:14+00:00

I want to retrieve a list of all schemas in a given Sql Server

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I want to retrieve a list of all schemas in a given Sql Server database. Using the ADO.NET schema retrieval API, I get a list of all collections but there is no collection for ‘Schemas’.
I could traverse the 'Tables', 'Procedures' collections (and others if required) and obtain a list of unique schema names but isn’t there a easier/shorter way of achieving the same result?

Example: For the standard 'AdventureWorks' database I would like to obtain the following list – dbo,HumanResources,Person,Production,Purchasing,Sales (I’ve omitted the other standard schem names like db_accessadmin,db_datareader etc)

Edit: I can get the list of schemas by querying the system view – INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA but would prefer using the schema API as first choice.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    For 2005 and later, these will both give what you’re looking for.

    SELECT name FROM sys.schemas
SELECT SCHEMA_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA

    For 2000, this will give a list of the databases in the instance.

    SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA

    That’s the “backward incompatability” noted in @Adrift’s answer.

    In SQL Server 2000 (and lower), there aren’t really “schemas” as such, although you can use roles as namespaces in a similar way. In that case, this may be the closest equivalent.

    SELECT * FROM sysusers WHERE gid <> 0
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