In relational databases, the information schema is an ANSI standard set of read-only views which provide information about all of the tables, views, columns, and procedures in a database. It can be used as a source of the information which some databases make available through non-standard commands, such as the SHOW command of MySQL, the DESCRIBE command of Oracle, and the \d command of PostgreSQL.
=> select count(table_name) from information_schema.tables; count ------- 99 (1 row) => select column_name, data_type, column_default, is_nullable from information_schema.columns where table_name='alpha'; column_name | data_type | column_default | is_nullable -------------+-----------+----------------+------------- foo | integer | | YES bar | character | | YES (2 rows) => select * from information_schema.information_schema_catalog_name; catalog_name -------------- johnd (1 row)
Famous quotes containing the word information:
“I believe it has been said that one copy of The Times contains more useful information than the whole of the historical works of Thucydides.”
—Richard Cobden (1804–1865)