describe


describe | desc [as json] 
 {table table_name [field_name[,...] ] |
 index index_name on table_name
 }

Describes information about a table or index, optionally in JSON format.

Specify a fully-qualified table_name as follows:

Entry specification	Description
`table_name`	Required. Specifies the full table name. Without further qualification, this entry indicates a table created in the default namespace (sysdefault), which you do not have to specify.
`parent-table.child-table`	Specifies a child table of a parent. Specify the parent table followed by a period (.) before the child name. For example, if the parent table is `Users`, specify the child table named `MailingAddress` as `Users.MailingAddress`.
`namespace-name:table-name`	Specifies a table created in the non-default namespace. Use the namespace followed by a colon (:). For example, to reference table `Users`, created in the `Sales` namespace, enter table_name as `Sales:Users`.

Following is the output of describe for table ns1:t1:

sql-> describe table ns1:t1;
 === Information ===
 +-----------+------+-----+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------+
 | namespace | name | ttl | owner | sysTable | r2compat | parent | children | indexes | description |
 +-----------+------+-----+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------+
 | ns1       | t1   |     |       | N        | N        |        |          |         |             |
 +-----------+------+-----+-------+----------+----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------+

 === Fields ===
 +----+------+---------+----------+-----------+----------+------------+----------+
 | id | name |  type   | nullable |  default  | shardKey | primaryKey | identity |
 +----+------+---------+----------+-----------+----------+------------+----------+
 |  1 | id   | Integer | N        | NullValue | Y        | Y          |          |
 +----+------+---------+----------+-----------+----------+------------+----------+
 |  2 | name | String  | Y        | NullValue |          |            |          |
 +----+------+---------+----------+-----------+----------+------------+----------+

sql->

This example shows using describe as json for the same table:

sql-> describe as json table ns1:t1;
{
  "json_version" : 1,
  "type" : "table",
  "name" : "t1",
  "namespace" : "ns1",
  "shardKey" : [ "id" ],
  "primaryKey" : [ "id" ],
  "fields" : [ {
    "name" : "id",
    "type" : "INTEGER",
    "nullable" : false,
    "default" : null
  }, {
    "name" : "name",
    "type" : "STRING",
    "nullable" : true,
    "default" : null
  } ]
}