Column format for Describe

Question

Hi guys,
I got a small question here.
The question is regarding the column formating in SQL prompt.
basically we can use DESCRIBE <table_name> to see the columns existed in a table.
the column headers appear are "Name", "Null", and "Type"
if you don't do any linesize and pagesize setting, the result of the describe is good enough, but the thing is when you set both linesize and pagesize to 1000, in linux you'll get a really screwed result of that DESCRIBE syntax.
in windows of course this might not happen if you set the screen buffer size to 1000 as well.
so, come to the real question:
How can I format the column header for DESCRIBE syntax?
Regards,
Adhika

Answer 1

the column NAME in the view v$tablespace is already of datratype varchar2(30). So when you set the sql*plus printing of this column to format a30, there would be no change.
test the command with format a5 and you'll see some difference.Actually you won't...
SQL> desc v$tablespace;
Name                                      Null?    Type
TS#                                                NUMBER
NAME                                               VARCHAR2(30)
INCLUDED_IN_DATABASE_BACKUP                        VARCHAR2(3)
BIGFILE                                            VARCHAR2(3)
FLASHBACK_ON                                       VARCHAR2(3)
ENCRYPT_IN_BACKUP                                  VARCHAR2(3)
SQL> col name format a10
SQL> desc v$tablespace;
Name                                      Null?    Type
TS#                                                NUMBER
NAME                                               VARCHAR2(30)
INCLUDED_IN_DATABASE_BACKUP                        VARCHAR2(3)
BIGFILE                                            VARCHAR2(3)
FLASHBACK_ON                                       VARCHAR2(3)
ENCRYPT_IN_BACKUP                                  VARCHAR2(3)But setting linesize does effect the output column size.
SQL> set linesize 100
SQL> desc v$tablespace;
Name                                                  Null?    Type
TS#                                                            NUMBER
NAME                                                           VARCHAR2(30)
INCLUDED_IN_DATABASE_BACKUP                                    VARCHAR2(3)
BIGFILE                                                        VARCHAR2(3)
FLASHBACK_ON                                                   VARCHAR2(3)
ENCRYPT_IN_BACKUP                                              VARCHAR2(3)
SQL>