What Is the System Catalog?

The system catalog is a collection of tables and views that contain important information about a database. A system catalog is available for each database. Information in the system catalog defines the structure of the database. For example, the DDL (data dictionary language) for all tables in the database is stored in the system catalog. See Figure 21.1 for an illustration of the system catalog within the database.

Figure 21.1. The system catalog.

As you can see in Figure 21.1, the system catalog for a database is actually part of the database. Within the database are objects, such as tables, indexes, and views. ...

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