How do I return the SQL data types from my query?

Question

I\'ve a SQL query that queries an enormous (as in, hundreds of views/tables with hard-to-read names like CMM-CPP-FAP-ADD) database that I don\'t need nor want to understand. Th

Answer 1

You can also use...

SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY()

...in cases where you don't have direct access to the metadata (e.g. a linked server query perhaps?).

• SQL_VARIANT_PROPERTY (Transact-SQL)

In SQL Server 2005 and beyond you are better off using the catalog views (sys.columns) as opposed to INFORMATION_SCHEMA. Unless portability to other platforms is important. Just keep in mind that the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views won't change and so they will progressively be lacking information on new features etc. in successive versions of SQL Server.

Answer 2

You could also insert the results (or top 10 results) into a temp table and get the columns from the temp table (as long as the column names are all different).

SELECT TOP 10 *
INTO #TempTable
FROM <DataSource>

Then use:

EXEC tempdb.dbo.sp_help N'#TempTable';

or

SELECT * 
FROM tempdb.sys.columns 
WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..#TempTable');

Extrapolated from Aaron's answer here.

Answer 3

select COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE, CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH 
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
where TABLE_NAME='yourTable';

Answer 4

select * from information_schema.columns

could get you started.

Answer 5

For SQL Server 2012 and above: If you place the query into a string then you can get the result set data types like so:

DECLARE @query nvarchar(max) = 'select 12.1 / 10.1 AS [Column1]';
EXEC sp_describe_first_result_set @query, null, 0;  

Answer 6

This will give you everything column property related.

SELECT * INTO TMP1
FROM ( SELECT TOP 1 /* rest of your query expression here */ );

SELECT o.name AS obj_name, TYPE_NAME(c.user_type_id) AS type_name, c.*  
FROM sys.objects AS o   
JOIN sys.columns AS c  ON o.object_id = c.object_id  
WHERE o.name = 'TMP1';

DROP TABLE TMP1;