sp_help is what you're looking for.
From Sybase online documentation on the sp_help system procedure:
Description
Reports information about a database object (any object listed in sysobjects) and about system or user-defined datatypes, as well as computed columns and function-based indexes. Column displays optimistic_index_lock.
Syntax
sp_help [objname][...]
Here is the (partial) output for the publishers table (pasted from Using sp_help on database objects):
Name Owner Object_type Create_date
---------------- ----------- ------------- ------------------------------
publishers dbo user table Nov 9 2004 9:57AM
(1 row affected)
Column_name Type Length Prec Scale Nulls Default_name Rule_name
----------- ------- ------ ----- ------- ------- -------------- ----------
pub_id char 4 NULL NULL 0 NULL pub_idrule
pub_name varchar 40 NULL NULL 1 NULL NULL
city varchar 20 NULL NULL 1 NULL NULL
state char 2 NULL NULL 1 NULL NULL
Access_Rule_name Computed_Column_object Identity
------------------- ------------------------- ------------
NULL NULL 0
NULL NULL 0
NULL NULL 0
NULL NULL 0
Still quoting Using sp_help on database objects:
If you execute sp_help without supplying an object name, the resulting report shows each object in sysobjects, along with its name, owner, and object type. Also shown is each user-defined datatype in systypes and its name, storage type, length, whether null values are allowed, and any defaults or rules bound to it. The report also notes if any primary or foreign key columns have been defined for a table or view.
Sybase IQ:
describe table_name;
If you want to use a command line program, but are not restricted to using SQL, you can use SchemaCrawler. SchemaCrawler is open source, and can produce files in plain text, CSV, or (X)HTML formats.
sp_tables will also work in isql. It gives you the list of tables in the current database.
For Sybase ASE, sp_columns table_name will return all the table metadata you are looking for.
Here a different approach to get meta data. This very helpful SQL command returns you the table / view definition as text:
SELECT text FROM syscomments WHERE id = OBJECT_ID('MySchema.MyTable') ORDER BY number, colid2, colid
Enjoy Patrick
If Sybase is SQL-92 compliant then this information is stored within the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables.
So the following will give you a list of tables and views in any SQL-92 compliant database
SELECT TABLE_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
When finding user table, in case if want the table owner name also, you can use the following:
select su.name + '.' + so.name
from sysobjects so,
sysusers su
where so.type = 'U' and
so.uid = su.uid
order by su.name,
so.name
You can search for column in all tables in database using:
SELECT so.name
FROM sysobjects so
INNER JOIN syscolumns sc ON so.id = sc.id
WHERE sc.name = 'YOUR_COLUMN_NAME'
In the Sybase version I use, the following gives list of columns for selected table
select *
FROM sys.syscolumns sc
where tname = 'YOUR_TABLE_NAME'
--and creator='YOUR_USER_NAME' --if you want to further restrict tables
--according to the user name that created it
SELECT
DB_NAME() TABLE_CATALOG,
NULL TABLE_SCHEMA,
so.name TABLE_NAME,
sc.name COLUMN_NAME,
sc.colid ORDINAL_POSITION,
NULL COLUMN_DEFAULT,
CASE WHEN st.allownulls=1 THEN 'YES'
ELSE 'NO'
END IS_NULLABLE,
st.name DATA_TYPE,
CASE WHEN st.name like '%char%' THEN st.length
END CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH,
CASE WHEN st.name like '%char%' THEN st.length
END*2 CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH,
CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.length
END NUMERIC_MAXIMUM_LENGTH,
CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.prec
END NUMERIC_PRECISION,
NULL NUMERIC_PRECISION_RADIX,
CASE WHEN st.name in ('numeric','int') THEN st.scale
END NUMERIC_SCALE,
CASE WHEN st.name in ('datetime') THEN st.prec
END DATETIME_PRECISION,
NULL CHARACTER_SET_CATALOG,
NULL CHARACTER_SET_SCHEMA,
NULL COLLATION_CATALOG,
NULL COLLATION_SCHEMA,
NULL DOMAIN_CATALOG,
NULL DOMAIN_SCHEMA,
NULL DOMAIN_NAME
FROM
sysobjects so
INNER JOIN
syscolumns sc
ON sc.id = so.id
inner join systypes st on st.usertype = sc.usertype
WHERE so.name = 'TableName'
Source: Stackoverflow.com