spark-instrumented-optimizer/docs/sql-ref-syntax-aux-show-views.md

---
layout: global
title: SHOW VIEWS
displayTitle: SHOW VIEWS
license: |
  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 
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  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
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---

### Description

The `SHOW VIEWS` statement returns all the views for an optionally specified database.
Additionally, the output of this statement may be filtered by an optional matching
pattern. If no database is specified then the views are returned from the 
current database. If the specified database is global temporary view database, we will
list global temporary views. Note that the command also lists local temporary views 
regardless of a given database.

### Syntax
{% highlight sql %}
SHOW VIEWS [ { FROM | IN } database_name ] [ LIKE regex_pattern ]
{% endhighlight %}

### Parameters
<dl>
  <dt><code><em>{ FROM | IN } database_name</em></code></dt>
  <dd>
     Specifies the database name from which views are listed.
  </dd>
  <dt><code><em>regex_pattern</em></code></dt>
  <dd>
     Specifies the regular expression pattern that is used to filter out unwanted views.
     <ul> 
          <li>Except for <code>*</code> and <code>|</code> character, the pattern works like a regular expression.</li>
          <li><code>*</code> alone matches 0 or more characters and <code>|</code> is used to separate multiple different regular expressions,
           any of which can match. </li>
          <li>The leading and trailing blanks are trimmed in the input pattern before processing. The pattern match is case-insensitive.</li>
     </ul>
  </dd>
</dl>

### Examples
{% highlight sql %}
-- Create views in different databases, also create global/local temp views.
CREATE VIEW sam AS SELECT id, salary FROM employee WHERE name = 'sam';
CREATE VIEW sam1 AS SELECT id, salary FROM employee WHERE name = 'sam1';
CREATE VIEW suj AS SELECT id, salary FROM employee WHERE name = 'suj';
USE userdb;
CREATE VIEW user1 AS SELECT id, salary FROM default.employee WHERE name = 'user1';
CREATE VIEW user2 AS SELECT id, salary FROM default.employee WHERE name = 'user2';
USE default;
CREATE GLOBAL TEMP VIEW temp1 AS SELECT 1 as col1;
CREATE TEMP VIEW temp2 AS SELECT 1 as col1;

-- List all views in default database
SHOW VIEWS;
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| namespace   | viewName   | isTemporary  |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| default     | sam        | false        |
| default     | sam1       | false        |
| default     | suj        | false        |
|             | temp2      | true         |
+-------------+------------+--------------+

-- List all views from userdb database 
SHOW VIEWS FROM userdb;
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| namespace   | viewName   | isTemporary  |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| userdb      | user1      | false        |
| userdb      | user2      | false        |
|             | temp2      | true         |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
  
-- List all views in global temp view database 
SHOW VIEWS IN global_temp;
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| namespace   | viewName   | isTemporary  |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| global_temp | temp1      | true         |
|             | temp2      | true         |
+-------------+------------+--------------+

-- List all views from default database matching the pattern `sam*`
SHOW VIEWS FROM default LIKE 'sam*';
+-----------+------------+--------------+
| namespace | viewName   | isTemporary  |
+-----------+------------+--------------+
| default   | sam        | false        |
| default   | sam1       | false        |
+-----------+------------+--------------+

-- List all views from the current database matching the pattern `sam|suj｜temp*`
SHOW VIEWS LIKE 'sam|suj|temp*';
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| namespace   | viewName   | isTemporary  |
+-------------+------------+--------------+
| default     | sam        | false        |
| default     | suj        | false        |
|             | temp2      | true         |
+-------------+------------+--------------+

{% endhighlight %}

### Related statements
- [CREATE VIEW](sql-ref-syntax-ddl-create-view.html)
- [DROP VIEW](sql-ref-syntax-ddl-drop-view.html)
- [CREATE DATABASE](sql-ref-syntax-ddl-create-database.html)
- [DROP DATABASE](sql-ref-syntax-ddl-drop-database.html)