How to determine which columns are shared between two tables?

Question

Very new to SQL Sever here... I understand the concept of joining tables, etc. but what is the easiest way to determine which columns are shared?

Say for instance we ha

Answer 1

Here is a handy query you can use to list out columns in a table:

SELECT c.name ColumnName
FROM sys.columns c INNER JOIN
     sys.tables t ON c.object_id = t.object_id 
WHERE t.name = 'something'

And here is a JOIN you could use to find common column names:

SELECT * 
FROM  (SELECT c.name ColumnName
        FROM sys.columns c INNER JOIN
             sys.tables t ON c.object_id = t.object_id 
        WHERE t.name = 'table1'
      )t1
JOIN (SELECT c.name ColumnName
        FROM sys.columns c INNER JOIN
             sys.tables t ON c.object_id = t.object_id 
        WHERE t.name = 'table2'
     )t2
ON t1.ColumnName = t2.ColumnName