INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES

The INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES view allows you to get information about all tables and views within a database. By default it will show you this information for every single table and view that is in the database.

ExplanationThis view can be called from any of the databases in an instance of SQL Server and will return the results for the data within that particular database.

The columns that this view returns are as follows:

Column name	Data type	Description
TABLE_CATALOG	nvarchar(128)	Table qualifier.
TABLE_SCHEMA	nvarchar(128)	Name of schema that contains the table.
TABLE_NAME	sysname	Table name.
TABLE_TYPE	varchar(10)	Type of table. Can be VIEW or BASE TABLE.

(Source: SQL Server 2005 Books Online)

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Here is an example of data that was pulled from the AdventureWorks database.  This data was pulled using this query:

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES

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To only show a list of tables you would use this query:

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'

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To only show a list of only the view you would use this query:

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'VIEW'