Views for Transact-SQL compatibility

The Adaptive Server Enterprise and SQL Anywhere system catalogs are different. The Adaptive Server Enterprise system tables and views are owned by the user dbo, and exist partly in the master database, partly in the sybsecurity database, and partly in each individual database. The SQL Anywhere system tables and views are owned by the special user SYS and exist separately in each database.

To assist in preparing compatible applications, SQL Anywhere provides the following set of views owned by the special user dbo, which correspond to their Adaptive Server Enterprise counterparts. Where architectural differences make the contents of a particular Adaptive Server Enterprise table or view meaningless in a SQL Anywhere context, the view is empty, containing just the column names and data types.

View name Description
syscolumns One row for each column in a table or view, and for each parameter in a procedure
syscomments One or more rows for each view, rule, default, trigger, and procedure, giving the SQL definition statement
sysindexes One row for each clustered or nonclustered index, one row for each table with no indexes, and an additional row for each table containing text or image data.
sysobjects One row for each table, view, procedure, rule, trigger default, log, or (in tempdb only) temporary object
systypes One row for each system-supplied or user-defined data type
sysusers One row for each user allowed in the database
syslogins One row for each valid user account