COL_NAME (Transact-SQL)

Returns the name of a column.

COL_NAME ( [ database_id , table_id , column_id ] )

Syntax

COL_NAME returns the name of a column. It can be used to retrieve the column name for a given table and column ID. 

SELECT COL_NAME(OBJECT_ID('YourTableName'), column_id)
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('YourTableName') AND column_id = 1;

Arguments

Argument Description Possible values
database_id The ID of the database. If omitted, the current database is assumed. An integer value representing the database ID.
table_id The ID of the table. An integer value representing the table ID. Use OBJECT_ID to get the table ID.
column_id The ID of the column. An integer value representing the column ID.

Return Type

sysname (alias for nvarchar(128))

Permissions

Requires VIEW DEFINITION permission on the database.

Examples

Example 1: Get the name of a column by ID

The following example returns the name of the column with ID 1 in the 'Person' table in the current database. 

SELECT COL_NAME(OBJECT_ID('Person'), 1);

Example 2: Get all column names for a table

This example retrieves the names of all columns in the 'Employee' table. 

SELECT
    c.name AS column_name
FROM
    sys.columns AS c
WHERE
    c.object_id = OBJECT_ID('Employee');

Tip: You can also use COL_LENGTH to get the length of a column.

See Also