Search an Oracle database for tables with specific column names? - sql

Question

We have a large Oracle database with many tables. Is there a way I can query or search to find if there are any tables with certain column names?
IE show me all tables that have the columns: id, fname, lname, address
Detail I forgot to add: I need to be able to search through different schemas. The one I must use to connect doesn't own the tables I need to search through.

Answer 1

To find all tables with a particular column:
select owner, table_name from all_tab_columns where column_name = 'ID';
To find tables that have any or all of the 4 columns:
select owner, table_name, column_name
from all_tab_columns
where column_name in ('ID', 'FNAME', 'LNAME', 'ADDRESS');
To find tables that have all 4 columns (with none missing):
select owner, table_name
from all_tab_columns
where column_name in ('ID', 'FNAME', 'LNAME', 'ADDRESS')
group by owner, table_name
having count(*) = 4;

Answer 2

TO search a column name use the below query if you know the column name accurately:
select owner,table_name from all_tab_columns where upper(column_name) =upper('keyword');
TO search a column name if you dont know the accurate column use below:
select owner,table_name from all_tab_columns where upper(column_name) like upper('%keyword%');

Answer 3

The data you want is in the "cols" meta-data table:
SELECT * FROM COLS WHERE COLUMN_NAME = 'id'
This one will give you a list of tables that have all of the columns you want:
select distinct
C1.TABLE_NAME
from
cols c1
inner join
cols c2
on C1.TABLE_NAME = C2.TABLE_NAME
inner join
cols c3
on C2.TABLE_NAME = C3.TABLE_NAME
inner join
cols c4
on C3.TABLE_NAME = C4.TABLE_NAME
inner join
tab t
on T.TNAME = C1.TABLE_NAME
where T.TABTYPE = 'TABLE' --could be 'VIEW' if you wanted
and upper(C1.COLUMN_NAME) like upper('%id%')
and upper(C2.COLUMN_NAME) like upper('%fname%')
and upper(C3.COLUMN_NAME) like upper('%lname%')
and upper(C4.COLUMN_NAME) like upper('%address%')
To do this in a different schema, just specify the schema in front of the table, as in
SELECT * FROM SCHEMA1.COLS WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%ID%';
If you want to combine the searches of many schemas into one output result, then you could do this:
SELECT DISTINCT
'SCHEMA1' AS SCHEMA_NAME
,TABLE_NAME
FROM SCHEMA1.COLS
WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%ID%'
UNION
SELECT DISTINCT
'SCHEMA2' AS SCHEMA_NAME
,TABLE_NAME
FROM SCHEMA2.COLS
WHERE COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%ID%'

Answer 4

Here is one that we have saved off to findcol.sql so we can run it easily from within SQLPlus
set verify off
clear break
accept colnam prompt 'Enter Column Name (or part of): '
set wrap off
select distinct table_name,
column_name,
data_type || ' (' ||
decode(data_type,'LONG',null,'LONG RAW',null,
'BLOB',null,'CLOB',null,'NUMBER',
decode(data_precision,null,to_char(data_length),
data_precision||','||data_scale
), data_length
) || ')' data_type
from all_tab_columns
where column_name like ('%' || upper('&colnam') || '%');
set verify on