VIEWS view

The INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS view contains metadata about views.

Required permissions

To get view metadata, you need the following Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions:

bigquery.tables.get
bigquery.tables.list

Each of the following predefined IAM roles includes the permissions that you need in order to get view metadata:

roles/bigquery.admin
roles/bigquery.dataEditor
roles/bigquery.metadataViewer
roles/bigquery.dataViewer

For more information about BigQuery permissions, see Access control with IAM.

Schema

When you query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS view, the query results contain one row for each view in a dataset.

The INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS view has the following schema:

Column name	Data type	Value
`TABLE_CATALOG`	`STRING`	The name of the project that contains the dataset
`TABLE_SCHEMA`	`STRING`	The name of the dataset that contains the view also referred to as the dataset `id`
`TABLE_NAME`	`STRING`	The name of the view also referred to as the table `id`
`VIEW_DEFINITION`	`STRING`	The SQL query that defines the view
`CHECK_OPTION`	`STRING`	The value returned is always `NULL`
`USE_STANDARD_SQL`	`STRING`	`YES` if the view was created by using a standard SQL query; `NO` if `useLegacySql` is set to `true`

Scope and syntax

Queries against this view must include a dataset or a region qualifier. For queries with a dataset qualifier, you must have permissions for the dataset. For queries with a region qualifier, you must have permissions for the project. For more information see Syntax. The following table explains the region and resource scopes for this view:

View name	Resource scope	Region scope
[PROJECT_ID.]`region-REGION`.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS	Project level	`REGION`
`[PROJECT_ID.]DATASET_ID.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS`	Dataset level	Dataset location

Replace the following:

Optional: PROJECT_ID: the ID of your Cloud project. If not specified, the default project is used.
REGION: any dataset region name. For example, region-us.
DATASET_ID: the ID of your dataset. For more information, see Dataset qualifier.

For example:

-- Returns metadata for views in a single dataset.
SELECT * FROM myDataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS;

-- Returns metadata for all views in a region.
SELECT * FROM region-us.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS;

Examples

Example 1:

The following example retrieves all columns from the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS view except for check_option which is reserved for future use. The metadata returned is for all views in mydataset in your default project — myproject.

To run the query against a project other than your default project, add the project ID to the dataset in the following format: `project_id`.dataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.view; for example, `myproject`.mydataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS.

SELECT
  * EXCEPT (check_option)
FROM
  mydataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS;

The result is similar to the following:

  +----------------+---------------+---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+
  | table_catalog  | table_schema  |  table_name   |                        view_definition                              | use_standard_sql |
  +----------------+---------------+---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+
  | myproject      | mydataset     | myview        | SELECT column1, column2 FROM [myproject:mydataset.mytable] LIMIT 10 | NO               |
  +----------------+---------------+---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+

Note that the results show that this view was created by using a legacy SQL query.

Example 2:

The following example retrieves the SQL query and query syntax used to define myview in mydataset in your default project — myproject.

SELECT
  table_name, view_definition, use_standard_sql
FROM
  mydataset.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS
WHERE
  table_name = 'myview';

The result is similar to the following:

  +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+
  |  table_name   |                        view_definition                        | use_standard_sql |
  +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+
  | myview        | SELECT column1, column2, column3 FROM mydataset.mytable       | YES              |
  +---------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+------------------+

Note that the results show that this view was created by using a standard SQL query.