How can I get column names from a table in Oracle?

Question

I need to query the database to get the column names, not to be confused with data in the table. For example, if I have a table named EVENT_LOG that contains eventID, eventType, eventDesc, and eventTime, then I would want to retrieve those field names from the query and nothing else.

I found how to do this in:

• Microsoft SQL Server
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL

But I need to know: how can this be done in Oracle?

Answer 1

You can try querying the USER_TAB_COLUMNS table for table column metadata.

Query:

SELECT table_name, column_name, data_type, data_length

FROM USER_TAB_COLUMNS

WHERE table_name = 'MYTABLE'