How to extract DDL from tables/views using a SQL query?

[RichardSCarchit]

I want to write a SQL query that queries the information_schema to generate a list of objects, their columns, relationships etc. - basically a data dictionary.

For each object I want to show the DDL code, and I know I can get it by executing

show create table [tablename]

but this command only runs as standalone, not as subquery within DML.

I can't manually repeat 'show create table' for hundreds of tables each time, so is there a way to get to the object DDL within a SQL query? For example in Oracle I could use a subquery

SELECT DBMS_METADATA.get_ddl etc. etc.

Can't use Python for a number of reasons. Thanks for any suggestion!

[pvignesh92]

@Richard Architect​ Hi, If you are using Unity Catalog, then the Information Schema is available which you can use to get a set of views describing the objects known to the schema’s catalog. But in that as well, you can only get View definition and not table DDL I believe.

But the table DDL can be obtained programmatically by using the below code. Please see if this helps.

dbs = spark.catalog.listDatabases()
for db in dbs:
  tables = spark.catalog.listTables(db.name)
  for t in tables:
    DDL = spark.sql("SHOW CREATE TABLE {}.{}".format(db.name, t.name))
    print(DDL.first()[0])

[Anonymous]

Hi @Richard Architect​ 

Hope all is well! Just wanted to check in if you were able to resolve your issue and would you be happy to share the solution or mark an answer as best? Else please let us know if you need more help. 

We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks!

[RichardSCarchit]

Thanks but per my original post I cannot run Python in my cluster, only SQL. Above code throws an error.

[Anonymous]

Hi @Richard Architect​ 

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