Question

I want to retrieve the table schema information using C#.

I used the sp_help <table_name> query to retrieve it, which works well when I execute it in query window but fail to retrieve it from C#. I want to retrieve all table information which is necessary for mapping between two tables such as name, datatype, size, isprimary, key, etc.

I had write down following code

SqlCommand cmd = sourceCon.CreateCommand();
cmd.CommandText = string.Format("sp_help '{0}'", cmbSourceTable.SelectedItem.ToString()); //cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; 
sourceDataTable = new DataTable(); 
SqlDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader(); 
sourceDataTable.Load(dr);
dr.Close(); 

It will returns only info about table that when it is created or not

Answer 1

I got a simple way to get schema of a table.
Just create a connection with any provider like SqlConnection object.
Create a command object for select query (select only top 1 record as you want only schema of table)
Execute that query which return a DataReader object.
Every DataReader object have a method called GetTableSchema() which returns DataTable object which have schema of a perticulat table.

This way you can easily get schema of any table with less effort.

Here I will provide a simple code for this

SqlConnection con=new SqlConnection("connString");
con.Open();
SqlCommand cmd= new SqlCommand("select top 0 * from Person.Address",con);
DataTable table = cmd.ExecuteReader().GetTableSchema();

Now this table object have schema information of Person.Address table.