INDEX_COL (Transact-SQL)

**APPLIES TO:** ![yes](media/yes.png)SQL Server (starting with 2008) ![yes](media/yes.png)Azure SQL Database ![no](media/no.png)Azure SQL Data Warehouse ![no](media/no.png)Parallel Data Warehouse

Returns the indexed column name. Returns NULL for XML indexes.

Topic link icon Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions

Syntax

  
INDEX_COL ( '[ database_name . [ schema_name ] .| schema_name ]  
    table_or_view_name', index_id , key_id )

Arguments

database_name
Is the name of the database.

schema_name
Is the name of the schema to which the index belongs.

table_or_view_name
Is the name of the table or indexed view. table_or_view_name must be delimited by single quotation marks and can be fully qualified by database name and schema name.

index_id
Is the ID of the index. index_ID is int.

key_id
Is the index key column position. key_ID is int.

Return Types

nvarchar (128 )

Exceptions

Returns NULL on error or if a caller does not have permission to view the object.

A user can only view the metadata of securables that the user owns or on which the user has been granted permission. This means that metadata-emitting, built-in functions such as INDEX_COL may return NULL if the user does not have any permission on the object. For more information, see Metadata Visibility Configuration.

Examples

A. Using INDEX_COL to return an index column name

The following example returns the column names of the two key columns in the index PK_SalesOrderDetail_SalesOrderID_LineNumber.

USE AdventureWorks2012;  
GO  
SELECT   
    INDEX_COL (N'AdventureWorks2012.Sales.SalesOrderDetail', 1,1) AS  
        [Index Column 1],   
    INDEX_COL (N'AdventureWorks2012.Sales.SalesOrderDetail', 1,2) AS  
        [Index Column 2]  
;  
GO

Here is the result set:

Index Column 1      Index Column 2  
-----------------------------------------------  
SalesOrderID        SalesOrderDetailID