Microsoft KB Archive/48711

= INF: Finding Names of Columns that Comprise the Key of a Table =

Article ID: 48711

Article Last Modified on 3/2/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft SQL Server 4.21a Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SQL Server 6.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q48711



When writing general purpose applications, it is often necessary to find out the names of the columns that comprise the key of a table. sp_help displays this information, but it is not readily usable inside a program in this format. The information is stored in the keys columns in SYSINDEXES in a highly encoded form. The following is a built-in function for decoding this data into a usable form:

INDEX_COL( &quot;sysobjects&quot;, 2, 1 )

This function will return a text string containing the name of the first column that comprises the second index on sysobjects. It is described in &quot;Microsoft SQL Server Command Reference.&quot;

Additional query words: Transact-SQL

Keywords: kbusage KB48711

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