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:

sp_remote_columns servername, tablename [, owner ]
[, database]

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;

For more information, see sp_remote_columns system procedure.