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DESCRIBE TABLE (Db2 command line processor)

The DESCRIBE TABLE command returns information about the columns of a table.

For each column, DESCRIBE TABLE returns the following information:
  • Column name
  • Table qualifier
  • Data type
  • Length
  • Scale
  • Nullability: yes, no, or unknown
Read syntax diagramSkip visual syntax diagramDESCRIBE TABLE table-creator. table-name
table-creator
The user ID of the table creator. The default is the user ID under which the Db2 command line processor line processor session is running.
table-name
The name of the table for which column information is returned.
Example: Displaying column information for the DSN8C10.DEPT table
Suppose that you want to display information about Db2 sample table DSN8C10.DEPT. You do not want the output to wrap on your display, so you want the column widths in the output to be at most 14 bytes. Use these commands to set the column width and display the parameter information:
CHANGE MAXCOLUMNWIDTH TO 14
DESCRIBE TABLE DSN8C10.EMP

The following information is displayed:

COLUMN_-
NAME
TABLE_SCHEM TYPE_NAME
COLUMN_-
SIZE
DECIMAL_-
DIGITS
IS_NULLABLE
DEPTNO DSN8C10 CHAR 3 <null> NO
DEPTNAME DSN8C10 VARCHAR 36 <null> NO
MGRNO DSN8C10 CHAR 6 <null> YES
ADMRDEPT DSN8C10 CHAR 3 <null> NO
LOCATION DSN8C10 INTEGER 16 <null> YES
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