Before you execute a CREATE EXISTING TABLE statement, it may be helpful to get a list of the columns that are available on a remote table. The sp_remote_columns system procedure produces a list of the columns on a remote table and a description of those data types. The following is the syntax for the sp_remote_columns system procedure:
CALL sp_remote_columns( @server_name, @table_name [, @table_owner [, @table_qualifier ] ] )
If a table name, owner, or database name is given, the list of columns is limited to only those that match.
For example, the following returns a list of the columns in the sysobjects table in the production database on an Adaptive Server Enterprise server named asetest:
CALL sp_remote_columns('asetest, 'sysobjects', null, 'production');