SET FMTONLY (Transact-SQL)
SQL Server 2008 R2
Returns only metadata to the client. Can be used to test the format of the response without actually running the query.
The following example changes the SET FMTONLY setting to ON and executes a SELECT statement. The setting causes the statement to return the column information only; no rows of data are returned.
USE AdventureWorks2008R2; GO SET FMTONLY ON; GO SELECT * FROM HumanResources.Employee; GO SET FMTONLY OFF; GO
