Question

I would like to do a lookup of tables in my SQL Server 2005 Express database based on table name. In MySQL I would use SHOW TABLES LIKE 'Datasheet%', but in T-SQL this throws an error (it tries to look for a SHOW stored procedure and fails).

Is this possible, and if so, how?

Answer 1

This will give you a list of the tables in the current database:

Select Table_name as 'Table name' From Information_schema.Tables Where Table_type = 'BASE TABLE' and Objectproperty  (Object_id(Table_name), 'IsMsShipped') = 0 

Some other useful T-SQL bits can be found here: http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/28529