View the Table Definition

You can display properties for a table in SQL Server 2012 by using SQL Server Management Studio or Transact-SQL.

In This Topic

  • Before you begin:

    Security

  • To display table properties, using:

    SQL Server Management Studio

    Transact-SQL

Before You Begin

Security

Permissions

You can only see properties in a table if you either own the table or have been granted permissions to that table.

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Using SQL Server Management Studio

To show table properties in the Properties window

  1. In Object Explorer, select the table for which you want to show properties.

  2. Right-click the table and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. For more information, see Table Properties.

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Using Transact-SQL

To show table properties

  1. In Object Explorer, connect to an instance of Database Engine.

  2. On the Standard bar, click New Query.

  3. Copy and paste the following example into the query window and click Execute. The example returns all columns from the sys.tables catalog view for the specified object.

    SELECT * FROM sys.tables
    WHERE object_id = 1973582069;
    

For more information, see sys.tables (Transact-SQL).

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