Question

What is a query that will show me the full definition, including indexes and keys for a SQL Server table? I want a pure query – and know that SQL Studio can give this to me, but I am often on “wild” computers that have only the most bare-bones apps and I have no rights to install studio. But SQLCMD is always an option.

UPDATE: I have tried sp_help, but is just yields one record which shows Name, Owner, Type and Created_Datetime. Is there something else I am missing with sp_help?

Here is what I call:

sp_help airports

Note that I really do want the DDL that defines the table.

Answer 1

There is no easy way to return the DDL. However you can get most of the details from Information Schema Views and System Views.

SELECT ORDINAL_POSITION, COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE, CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH
       , IS_NULLABLE
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Customers'

SELECT CONSTRAINT_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.CONSTRAINT_TABLE_USAGE
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Customers'

SELECT name, type_desc, is_unique, is_primary_key
FROM sys.indexes
WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.Customers')