SQL Server Compact Code Snippet of the Week #6: List All User Tables in a Database

This week’s short code snippet shows how to list all the user table objects in a SQL Server Compact database file. Notice that a SQL Server Compact database can also contain a number of system tables, these can be created by the Merge Replication/RDA/Sync Framework APIs. The metadata (like list of tables) is not exposed as tables, but as something called views, specifically the INFORMATION_SCHEMA views (despite the fact that SQL Server Compact does not support user defined views).

SELECT table_name AS Name FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_TYPE <> N'SYSTEM TABLE'