On Monday 17 May 2004 17:31, Scot L. Harris wrote: > On Mon, 2004-05-17 at 06:26, Andrew McMillan wrote: > > On Sun, 2004-05-16 at 23:16 -0400, Scot L. Harris wrote: > > > > You can also select the column names from the database metadata > > > > directly: > > > > > > > > SELECT attname > > > > FROM pg_class c join pg_attribute a on c.oid = a.attrelid > > > > WHERE c.relname = '<your table name>' > > > > AND a.attnum >= 0; > > > > > > > > This approach won't get killed by the efficiency problems above. > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > Andrew. > > > > When I want to figure out something like this I tend to use "psql -E" so > > that all queries are echoed before being sent to the backend. Then I do > > something like "\d <table>" and see what SQL psql generates internally. > > > > Also, dig here for detailed information on the postgresql data > > dictionary tables: > > > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/interactive/catalogs.html > > > > the most useful ones are pg_class and pg_attribute usually (for obvious > > reasons :-). With 7.4 I also find myself looking at the > > pg_stat_activity view from time to time as well. > > > > Cheers, > > Andrew. > > Thanks to everyone that responded to my question. I have my application > working as I wanted. I really appreciate all the help that was > provided. A little late to the party, but it seems worth mentioning that this information is also available in the information_schema, which has the benefits of being sql complient, stable across releases, and keeps you out of the system catalogs. for example: cms74=# select column_name from information_schema.columns where table_name = 'current_downloads'; column_name ------------- start_time entity_id (2 rows) for more on information schema check out http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/interactive/information-schema.html Robert Treat -- Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
