LKBEN11376: Howto test if a certain table is present in a postgres database

Symptom

You need to know the presence of a certain database table

Cause

Sometimes you just need to know.

Solution

To test if a table is present in database you can use the following sql query.

  SELECT TRUE
    FROM information_schema.tables
   WHERE table_name   = TABLE AND
         table_schema = SCHEMA

This query is portable on database systems supporting the information schema defacto standard.

For more information take a look at the following link:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/information-schema.html

About the Author

Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience, including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform.

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