Find all Table columns, datatype and metadata information in Google BigQuery using Information Schema

We often want to find column names of a table (table metadata) in Bigquery, like the list of all the columns and their datatypes and constraints etc. Is there anything similar to dbc.tables or dbo.alltables in Bigquery ?

Yes, Bigquery offers this information via Information Schema:

Finding table level metadata within a dataset:

SELECT * FROM mydataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE table_type="BASE TABLE"

+----------------+---------------+----------------+------------+--------------------+---------------------+
  | table_catalog  | table_schema  |   table_name   | table_type | is_insertable_into |    creation_time    |
  +----------------+---------------+----------------+------------+--------------------+---------------------+
  | myproject      | mydataset     | mytable1       | BASE TABLE | NO                 | 2018-10-31 22:40:05 |
  +----------------+---------------+----------------+------------+--------------------+---------------------+

Finding Column level metadata across Tables in a dataset:

SELECT * FROM
 `bigquery-public-data`.census_bureau_usa.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE table_name="population_by_zip_2010"

+------------------------+-------------+------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+
|       table_name       | column_name | ordinal_position | is_nullable | data_type | is_hidden | is_system_defined | is_partitioning_column | clustering_ordinal_position |
+------------------------+-------------+------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+
| population_by_zip_2010 | zipcode     |                1 | NO          | STRING    | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
| population_by_zip_2010 | geo_id      |                2 | YES         | STRING    | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
| population_by_zip_2010 | minimum_age |                3 | YES         | INT64     | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
| population_by_zip_2010 | maximum_age |                4 | YES         | INT64     | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
| population_by_zip_2010 | gender      |                5 | YES         | STRING    | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
| population_by_zip_2010 | population  |                6 | YES         | INT64     | NO        | NO                | NO                     |                        NULL |
+------------------------+-------------+------------------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------------+------------------------+-----------------------------+

nVector

posted on 11 May 20