Testing for the existence of a table

[Greg Shannan]

All:

Is there some standard way I can test for the existence of a database table?

I am using ODBC with an ingres database; and I don't really want to open a query
like "select * ...." because I may end up reading the whole thing in, when all I
want to know is if the table exists.

I'm just wondering if there is a standard way in ado with ODBC.

TIA

.... Greg Shannan

 

[Bernie Yaeger]

Hi Greg,

The answer lies in Ingres. In SQL Server, for example, it's an easy matter
of identifying table objects by tablename using an sp with code like this:

if exists (select * from information_schema.tables where table_name =
'a_radj')

Is there similar objects in Ingres?

Bernie

 

[Greg Shannan]

Bernie:

Yes, there is a table with similar info. I was hoping not to have to use it,
but it seems this is the accepted way.

Thanks.

.... Greg Shannan

 

[William \(Bill\) Vaughn]

In SQL Server, we can do a SELECT [Name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [Name] =
@NameWanted
I expect that there might be similar tables in Ingress...

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[Miha Markic [MVP C#]]

Just a note that only ado.net supported way to extract metadata without
doing selects is by using OleDbConnection.GetOleDbSchemaTable method.

 

[Mark Davison via DotNetMonster.com]

I have not tried this but you might be able to use:

select * from table where 1=0

I think this will bring in the table schema, if it exists, but no data. Be sure to wrap it in a try-catch to get the exception if there is no table. If this works, it will work regardless of the data source.