How do I SHOW TABLES in Oracle Database?

Question

I'm trying to do a SHOW TABLES command in my Oracle Database 19c as documented here.

But when I run that command all I see in the output of SQL Developer is this:

Show tables handled.

How can I get SHOW TABLES to give me a list of tables in the schema?

Answer 1

The documentation you referenced is not for Oracle 19c; it is for a defunct project that is completely unrelated. Oracle database does not have a SHOW TABLES command. Depending on what you're looking for, you would need to select from one of the following data dictionary views to get a list of tables:

• USER_TABLES - contains info on the current user's tables
• ALL_TABLES - contains info on all tables that the current user has privileges to access
• DBA_TABLES - contains info on all tables in the instance, but requires elevated privileges to access

For example:

select table_name from user_tables;

For more information on the data dictionary, check out the correct Oracle 19c documentation here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/index.html

As another example, if you're trying to confirm the existence of a table named "EMPLOYEE", you could run this query:

SELECT * FROM all_tables WHERE table_name = 'EMPLOYEE'