148

I'm using PostgreSQL 9.1. I have the column name of a table. Is it possible to find the table(s) that has/have this column? If so, how?

jkdev
  • 11,360
  • 15
  • 54
  • 77
QuestionEverything
  • 4,809
  • 7
  • 42
  • 61

6 Answers6

208

You can also do

 select table_name from information_schema.columns where column_name = 'your_column_name'
Chankey Pathak
  • 21,187
  • 12
  • 85
  • 133
Ravi Shekhar
  • 2,633
  • 4
  • 19
  • 19
  • 2
    oddly, I've seen instances where this query shows tables that @RomanPekar's query does not; I wonder why that would be – Ken Bellows Jul 18 '16 at 16:05
  • 2
    @KenBellows I guess pg_class / pg_attirbute can change with new versions of Postgresql while information_schema is defined in ANSI specification. So for general queries I'd say this answer is better. Sometimes I need to have object id for example, in this case I need to use db-engine specific tables. Plus, information_schema views are always an additional step over db engine specific tables and sometimes can lead to a (slightly) worse performance – Roman Pekar Feb 18 '19 at 08:44
  • 1
    This was the more accurate of the two solutions offered - in my case. The pg_class query missed two (of 150) tables. The information_schema query captured all of the tables. I'll have to dig around to see why two tables fell outside of the join. In any event thanks for the info! – Thomas Altfather Good Aug 26 '19 at 15:30
81

you can query system catalogs:

select c.relname
from pg_class as c
    inner join pg_attribute as a on a.attrelid = c.oid
where a.attname = <column name> and c.relkind = 'r'

sql fiddle demo

Roman Pekar
  • 107,110
  • 28
  • 195
  • 197
10

I've used the query of @Roman Pekar as a base and added schema name (relevant in my case)

select n.nspname as schema ,c.relname
    from pg_class as c
    inner join pg_attribute as a on a.attrelid = c.oid
    inner join pg_namespace as n on c.relnamespace = n.oid
where a.attname = 'id_number' and c.relkind = 'r'

sql fiddle demo

jutky
  • 3,895
  • 6
  • 31
  • 45
4

Simply:

$ psql mydatabase -c '\d *' | grep -B10 'mycolname'

Enlarge -B offset to get table name, if need

Dmitry
  • 846
  • 1
  • 7
  • 20
4

Wildcard Support Find the table schema and table name that contains the string you want to find.

select t.table_schema,
       t.table_name
from information_schema.tables t
inner join information_schema.columns c on c.table_name = t.table_name
                                and c.table_schema = t.table_schema
where c.column_name like '%STRING%'
      and t.table_schema not in ('information_schema', 'pg_catalog')
      and t.table_type = 'BASE TABLE'
order by t.table_schema;
jjj
  • 2,594
  • 7
  • 36
  • 57
0
select t.table_schema,
       t.table_name
from information_schema.tables t
inner join information_schema.columns c on c.table_name = t.table_name 
                                and c.table_schema = t.table_schema
where c.column_name = 'name_colum'
      and t.table_schema not in ('information_schema', 'pg_catalog')
      and t.table_type = 'BASE TABLE'
order by t.table_schema;
romuloMendes
  • 47
  • 6
  • 6
    Please [edit your answer](https://stackoverflow.com/posts/59202865/edit) to include an explanation for your code. The question is more than *six years old*, and already has an accepted answer in addition to several well-upvoted, well-explained ones. Without such an explanation on your answer, it stands to be downvoted or removed. Adding that extra info would help justify your answer's continued existence here. – Das_Geek Dec 05 '19 at 20:52