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SHOW, SHOW DATABASES, and SHOW SCHEMAS Statements

SHOW Statement

The SHOW statement is an alias for DESCRIBE. It shows the schema of a table, view or query.

New The following feature was introduced in DuckDB 2.0.

SHOW can also print a configuration setting when the name is not a table (PostgreSQL-style):

SET threads = 42;
SHOW threads;
threads
42

If both a table and a setting share the name, SHOW describes the table and prints a deprecation warning (use DESCRIBE for tables). DESCRIBE never resolves a setting.

The show_behavior setting configures how SHOW resolves a bare identifier:

  • 'auto' (default): describe a table if one exists, otherwise show the setting.
  • 'table': always describe a table.
  • 'setting': always show a setting.
SET show_behavior = 'setting';

SHOW DATABASES Statement

The SHOW DATABASES statement shows a list of all attached databases:

ATTACH 'my.duckdb' AS my_database;
SHOW DATABASES;
database_name
memory
my_database 
DETACH my_database;
SHOW DATABASES;
database_name
memory

SHOW SCHEMAS Statement

This statement was introduced in DuckDB 1.5.

The SHOW SCHEMAS statement shows a list of all schemas across non-internal databases:

SHOW SCHEMAS;
database_name schema_name current
memory main true

The current column indicates which schema is the default schema (set via the USE statement).

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