sp_special_columns

Description

Retrieves this information about columns within a specified table or view:

The optimal set of columns that uniquely identifies a row in the table or view
The columns that are automatically updated when any value in the row is updated by a transaction

Syntax

sp_special_columns table_name [, table_owner]
 [, table_qualifier] [, col_type]

Parameters

table_name: is the name of the table. Wildcard-character search patterns are not supported.

table_owner: is the owner of the table. Wildcard-character search patterns are not supported.

table_qualifier: is ignored. Leave blank or set to NULL.

col_type

is a value that requests information about columns of a specific type:

“R” returns information about columns with values that uniquely identify any row in the table.
“V” returns information about columns with values that are automatically generated by a target each time a row is inserted or updated.

Usage

This procedure corresponds to the ODBC function SQLSpecialColumns.
See Table 11-1 for ODBC datatypes and matching ODBC integer identifiers returned in the TYPE_NAME and DATA_TYPE columns of the result set.