Get Column names from a query without data

Question

I have a view vwGetData which gets data from two tables t1,t2 and has fields:

t1.Field1 [ALIAS1], t1.Field2, t2.Field3, t2.Field4, t2.Field5 [ALIAS5]

I will provide below input

Select * from vwGetData

i want to get below output in C#/SQL

ALIAS1
Field2
Field3
Field4
ALIAS5

or

ALIAS1, Field2, Field3, Field4, ALIAS5

I want to do this using C# and SQL.

Answer 1

The first thing you would do is make sure that no data gets returned:

SELECT TOP 0 [vwGetData].* FROM [vwGetData] WHERE 1 = 2;

Now assuming you know how to set up a DataReader you would do the following:

using(var reader = command.ExecuteReader())
{
  // This will return false - we don't care, we just want to make sure the schema table is there.
  reader.Read();

  var tableSchema = reader.GetSchemaTable();

  // Each row in the table schema describes a column
  foreach (DataRow row in tableSchema.Rows)
  {
    Console.WriteLine(row["ColumnName"]);
  }
}

You can also could also look into the SQL Catalog SYS Views.