PostgreSQL : How to describe table in psql

For the DBA's using a conventional database such as oracle, they have a habit of using DESC or DESCRIBE but in PostgreSQL, it's in different ways, we will discuss the same here

There are 3 ways to describe a table

• using \d
• using \d+
• using view INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

 [Also Read- Basic Administration in PostgreSQL]

suppose you want to see the columns in the pg_roles table from the PostgreSQL database

\d  will details of columns in particular table as shown below 

\d+ is an advanced version of \d, it provides you the definition of the table as well. 

You have another way to describe a table i.e. using SQL query on INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS catalog, there are a number of columns in this table, you can limit what you want to see, select * will  give full details, however, I will only select the column name and its data type 

select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS;

select column_name, data_type from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS where table_name = 'pg_roles';