There is a limited number of ways to obtain the schema of a table:
1) Use DESCRIBE TABLE in cqlsh
2) Find the schema definition in the code (for system tables)
3) Ask support/user to provide schema
4) Piece together the schema definition from the system tables
Option (1) is the most convenient but requires access to live cluster.
(2) is limited to system tables only.
When investigating issues for customers, we have to rely on (3) and this
often adds communication round-trips and delays. (4) requires knowledge
of ScyllaDB internals and access to system tables.
The new dump-schema commands provides a convenient way to obtain the
schema of tables, given that there is access to either an sstable or the
system tables. It can dump the schema of system tables without either.
Closesscylladb/scylladb#26433
584f4e467e
