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I'm new to Oracle databases. I have used to SQL Server and the description fields (MS_Description) for tables and columns for documentation purposes. Is there an equivalent for Oracle? What is the best practice for documenting Oracle database?

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you might also be interested in this related question –  Jack Douglas Sep 26 '12 at 10:47
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up vote 8 down vote accepted

In Oracle, you would use the COMMENT command to:

[...] add to the data dictionary a comment about a table or table column, view, materialized view, operator, indextype, mining model, or edition.

Most tools (PL/SQL Developer, Toad...) will display these comments in appropriate fields when you browse the database schema.

The comments can be queried directly with the *COMMENTS dictionary views, such as ALL_TAB_COMMENTS.

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In Oracle there are table and column comments that can be used for documentation.

These comments can easily be added by the following commands:

COMMENT ON TABLE my_table IS 'Documentation of my table'

COMMENT ON COLUMN my_table.my_columns IS 'Documentation of my column'
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thanks Peter and welcome to dba.se :) –  Jack Douglas Sep 26 '12 at 10:48
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Oracle exposes its data dictionary through views. You can use these views to query the information you need.

The main views that you'll need to use are:

  • DBA_OBJECTS - lists all DB objects
  • DBA_TABLES - list all tables (and their owners, which are schemas in Oracle)
  • DBA_TAB_COLUMNS - list all tables and their columns

There are also ALL_% and USER_% equivalents of these views (eg: `USER_TABLES) that only show all objects you have permission on, and objects you own.

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Thanks for this answer but I think you misunderstood my question. I know that I can query these objects, but how can I write my own metadata e.g for columns? If if have a column CustomerID I might want to add 'Surrogate id generated by ETL-process`. See for example this link –  jrara Sep 26 '12 at 10:04
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