VIEWS (Transact-SQL)

Returns one row for views that can be accessed by the current user in the current database.

To retrieve information from these views, specify the fully qualified name of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.view_name.

Column name	Data type	Description
TABLE_CATALOG	nvarchar(128)	View qualifier.
TABLE_SCHEMA	nvarchar(128)	Name of schema that contains the view. Important Do not use INFORMATION_SCHEMA views to determine the schema of an object. The only reliable way to find the schema of an object is to query the sys.objects catalog view or use the OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME function.
TABLE_NAME	nvarchar(128)	View name.
VIEW_DEFINITION	nvarchar(4000)	Returns the first 4000 characters of the definition text of the view if the view is not encrypted. Otherwise, returns NULL. To ensure that you obtain the complete definition, query the OBJECT_DEFINITION function or the definition column in the sys.sql_modules catalog view.
CHECK_OPTION	varchar(7)	Type of WITH CHECK OPTION. Is CASCADE if the original view was created by using the WITH CHECK OPTION. Otherwise, NONE is returned.
IS_UPDATABLE	varchar(2)	Specifies whether the view is updatable. Always returns NO.

Examples

The following example returns each view name and the first 4000 characters of the view definition.

USE AdventureWorks;
GO

SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME,
       VIEW_DEFINITION AS [First 4000 characters]
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS;