在vb60中，你可以这样做:

Public Cn As ADODB.Connection
'open connection
Dim Rs As ADODB.Recordset
 Set Rs = Cn.OpenSchema(adSchemaColumns, Array(Empty, Empty, UCase("Table"), UCase("field")))

'和sample (valRs是rs.fields("CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH").value的函数):

 RT_Charactar_Maximum_Length = (ValRS(Rs, "CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH"))
        rt_Tipo = (ValRS(Rs, "DATA_TYPE"))

对于Apache Derby，如下面的答案所示:

select columndatatype from sys.syscolumns
  where referenceid = (
    select tableid from sys.systables
    where tablename = 'YOUR_TABEL_NAME'
    and columnname= 'YOUR_COLUMN_NAME')

使用这个查询

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_NAME'
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

从SQL Server 2012开始:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_exec_describe_first_result_set( N'SELECT * FROM [my].[Table]', NULL, 0 );

在TSQL中最简单的方法是:

SELECT COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'yourTableName'

要在上面的答案的基础上进行构建，获得列数据类型的格式与声明列的格式相同通常是很有用的。

例如，varchar(50)， varchar(max)， decimal(p, s)。

这允许你这样做:

SELECT 
  [Name]         = c.[name]
, [Type]         = 
    CASE 
      WHEN tp.[name] IN ('varchar', 'char', 'varbinary') THEN tp.[name] + '(' + IIF(c.max_length = -1, 'max', CAST(c.max_length AS VARCHAR(25))) + ')' 
      WHEN tp.[name] IN ('nvarchar','nchar') THEN tp.[name] + '(' + IIF(c.max_length = -1, 'max', CAST(c.max_length / 2 AS VARCHAR(25)))+ ')'      
      WHEN tp.[name] IN ('decimal', 'numeric') THEN tp.[name] + '(' + CAST(c.[precision] AS VARCHAR(25)) + ', ' + CAST(c.[scale] AS VARCHAR(25)) + ')'
      WHEN tp.[name] IN ('datetime2') THEN tp.[name] + '(' + CAST(c.[scale] AS VARCHAR(25)) + ')'
      ELSE tp.[name]
    END
, [RawType]      = tp.[name]
, [MaxLength]    = c.max_length
, [Precision]    = c.[precision]
, [Scale]        = c.scale
, [IsNullable]   = c.is_nullable
FROM sys.tables t 
JOIN sys.schemas s ON t.schema_id = s.schema_id
JOIN sys.columns c ON t.object_id = c.object_id
JOIN sys.types tp ON c.user_type_id = tp.user_type_id
WHERE s.[name] = 'dbo' AND t.[name] = 'MyTable'