SHOW TABLES (Databricks SQL)

Returns all the tables for an optionally specified database. Additionally, the output of this statement may be filtered by an optional matching pattern. If no database is specified then the tables are returned from the current database.

Syntax 

SHOW TABLES [ { FROM | IN } database_name ] [ LIKE regex_pattern ]

Parameters

  • database_name

    Specifies database name from which tables are to be listed. If not provided, uses the current database.

  • regex_pattern

    The regular expression pattern that is used to filter out unwanted tables.

    • Except for * and | character, the pattern works like a regular expression.
    • * alone matches 0 or more characters and | is used to separate multiple different regular expressions, any of which can match.
    • The leading and trailing blanks are trimmed in the input pattern before processing. The pattern match is case-insensitive.

Examples 

-- List all tables in default database
> SHOW TABLES;
 database tableName isTemporary
 -------- --------- -----------
  default       sam       false
  default      sam1       false
  default       suj       false

-- List all tables from userdb database
> SHOW TABLES FROM userdb;
 database tableName isTemporary
 -------- --------- -----------
   userdb     user1       false
   userdb     user2       false

-- List all tables in userdb database
> SHOW TABLES IN userdb;
 database tableName isTemporary
 -------- --------- -----------
   userdb     user1       false
   userdb     user2       false

-- List all tables from default database matching the pattern `sam*`
> SHOW TABLES FROM default LIKE 'sam*';
 database tableName isTemporary
 -------- --------- -----------
  default       sam       false
  default      sam1       false

-- List all tables matching the pattern `sam*|suj`
> SHOW TABLES LIKE 'sam*|suj';
 database tableName isTemporary
 -------- --------- -----------
  default       sam       false
  default      sam1       false
  default       suj       false