Thread: table listing queries
Hi, I know that questions like this have been asked in the past, but I can find no definitive answer to one particular part of my problem... Namely, in MySQL I can say: "SHOW TABLES FROM 'dbname'" to list tables in a database I'm not currently connected to. I can find no way of doing this in PgSQL. Is there a way, or is postgres not letting me list the tables until I have connected to the database for security reasons? Thanks in advance, D. -- Daniel Silverstone http://www.digital-scurf.org/ PGP mail accepted and encouraged. Key Id: 2BC8 4016 2068 7895
On 8/25/05 7:13 AM, "Daniel Silverstone" <dsilvers@digital-scurf.org> wrote: > Hi, > > I know that questions like this have been asked in the past, but I can > find no definitive answer to one particular part of my problem... > > Namely, in MySQL I can say: "SHOW TABLES FROM 'dbname'" to list tables > in a database I'm not currently connected to. > > I can find no way of doing this in PgSQL. > > Is there a way, or is postgres not letting me list the tables until I > have connected to the database for security reasons? There are system catalogs which contain the information about tables. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/catalogs.html However, they are specific to each database. In other words, the storage of database-specific information is all WITHIN the given database, so you need to be physically accessing the given database to even see those tables (or do the query). Sean
> Namely, in MySQL I can say: "SHOW TABLES FROM 'dbname'" to list tables > in a database I'm not currently connected to. In MySQL, table definitions are replicated outside the database files, and might therefore be available without connecting to a specifc database. This probably happens because of the need for some kind of unified repository of objects pertaining to different database engines. Helder M. Vieira