(this is SQL*Plus specific script) COLUMN DUMMY NOPRINT COMPUTE SUM OF NUM_ROWS ON DUMMY BREAK ON DUMMY SELECT NULL DUMMY, T.TABLE_NAME, C.COLUMN_NAME, T.NUM_ROWS FROM ALL_TABLES T, ALL_TAB_COLUMNS C WHERE T.TABLE_NAME = C.TABLE_NAME AND C.COLUMN_NAME LIKE '%PATTERN%' AND T.OWNER = C.OWNER ORDER BY T.TABLE_NAME; Note that NUM_ROWS records the number of rows which were in a table when (and if) it was last analyzed. This will most likely deviate from the actual number of rows currently in the table. Example 4: finding view columns Find view columns SELECT TABLE_NAME, column_name, decode(c.DATA_TYPE, 'VARCHAR2', c.DATA_TYPE || '(' || c.DATA_LENGTH || ')', 'NUMBER', DECODE(c.data_precision, NULL, c.DATA_TYPE, 0, c.DATA_TYPE, c.DATA_TYPE || '(' || c.data_precision || DECODE(c.data_scale, NULL, ')', 0, ')' , ', ' || c.data_scale || ')')), c.DATA_TYPE) data_type FROM cols c, obj o WHERE c.TABLE_NAME = o.object_name AND o.object_type = 'VIEW' AND c.table_name LIKE '%PATTERN%' ORDER BY c.table_name, c.column_id; Warning: This is incomplete with respect to multiple datatypes including char, varchar and timestamp and uses extremely old, deprecated dictionary views, back to oracle 5. Use of underscore in table and column names The underscore is a special SQL pattern match to a single character and should be escaped if you are in fact looking for an underscore character in the LIKE clause of a query. Just add the following after a LIKE statement: ESCAPE '_' And then each literal underscore should be a double underscore: __ Example LIKE '%__G' ESCAPE '_' Oracle Metadata Registry The Oracle product Oracle Enterprise Metadata Manager (EMM) is an ISO/IEC 11179 compatible metadata registry. It stores administered metadata in a consistent format that can be used for metadata publishing. In January 2006, EMM was available only through Oracle consulting services. See also Information schema Metadata References External links article on Oracle Metadata Metadata Metadata Articles with example SQL code