The sp_columns catalog stored procedure is equivalent to SQLColumns in ODBC. The results returned are ordered by TABLE_QUALIFIER, TABLE_OWNER, and TABLE_NAME.
| Column name | Data type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| TABLE_QUALIFIER | sysname | Object qualifier name. This field can be NULL. |
| TABLE_OWNER | sysname | Object owner name. This field always returns a value. |
| TABLE_NAME | sysname | Object name. This field always returns a value. |
| COLUMN_NAME | sysname | Column name, for each column of the TABLE_NAME returned. This field always returns a value. |
| DATA_TYPE | smallint | Integer code for ODBC data type. If this is a data type that cannot be mapped to an ODBC type, it is NULL. The native data type name is returned in the TYPE_NAMEcolumn. |
| TYPE_NAME | sysname | String representing a data type. The underlying DBMS presents this data type name. |
| PRECISION | int | Number of significant digits. The return value for the PRECISION column is in base 10. |
| LENGTH | int | Transfer size of the data.1 |
| SCALE | smallint | Number of digits to the right of the decimal point. |
| RADIX | smallint | Base for numeric data types. |
| NULLABLE | smallint | Specifies nullability. 1 = NULL is possible. 0 = NOT NULL. |
| REMARKS | varchar(254) | This field always returns NULL. |
| COLUMN_DEF | nvarchar(4000) | Default value of the column. |
| SQL_DATA_TYPE | smallint | Value of the SQL data type as it appears in the TYPE field of the descriptor. This column is the same as the DATA_TYPE column, except for the datetime and SQL-92 intervaldata types. This column always returns a value. |
| SQL_DATETIME_SUB | smallint | Subtype code for datetime and SQL-92 interval data types. For other data types, this column returns NULL. |
| CHAR_OCTET_LENGTH | int | Maximum length in bytes of a character or integer data type column. For all other data types, this column returns NULL. |
| ORDINAL_POSITION | int | Ordinal position of the column in the object. The first column in the object is 1. This column always returns a value. |
| IS_NULLABLE | varchar(254) | Nullability of the column in the object. ISO rules are followed to determine nullability. An ISO SQL-compliant DBMS cannot return an empty string. YES = Column can include NULLS. NO = Column cannot include NULLS. This column returns a zero-length string if nullability is unknown. The value returned for this column is different from the value returned for the NULLABLE column. |
| SS_DATA_TYPE | tinyint | SQL Server data type used by extended stored procedures. For more information, see Data Types (Transact-SQL). |
1 For more information, see the Microsoft ODBC documentation.