Spark SQL Guide

SHOW TABLES

Description

The SHOW TABLES statement 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

{FROM|IN} database_name
Specifies the database name from which tables are listed.
LIKE regex_pattern
Specifies the regular expression pattern that is used to filter out unwanted tables.
  • Except for `*` and `|` character, the pattern works like a regex.
  • `*` alone matches 0 or more characters and `|` is used to separate multiple different regexes, any of which can match.
  • The leading and trailing blanks are trimmed in the input pattern before processing.

Example

-- 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        |
  +-----------+------------+--------------+--+