In JDBC metadata is not set, if the result set is empty, so I cannot execute getColumnNames().
I tried querying the derby systables:
The SYS.SYSTABLES table contains REFERENCEID, COLUMNAME, COLUMNUMBER, ...
COLUMNAME is what I'm searching for. But I see no possibility to join this table with SYS.SYSTABLES or any other table.
You can join systables and syscolumns with TABLEID = REFERENCEID
select TABLENAME,COLUMNNAME, t.*
FROM sys.systables t, sys.syscolumns
WHERE TABLEID = REFERENCEID and tablename = 'SYSCOLUMNS'
TABLENAME COLUMNNAME REFERENCEID COLUMNNAME COLUMNNUMBER COLUMNDATATYPE COLUMNDEFAULT COLUMNDEFAULTID AUTOINCREMENTVALUE AUTOINCREMENTSTART AUTOINCREMENTINC
---------- ------------------ ------------------------------------ ------------------ ------------ ------------------------------------------------ ------------- --------------- ------------------ ------------------ ----------------
SYSCOLUMNS AUTOINCREMENTINC 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 AUTOINCREMENTINC 9 BIGINT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS AUTOINCREMENTSTART 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 AUTOINCREMENTSTART 8 BIGINT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS AUTOINCREMENTVALUE 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 AUTOINCREMENTVALUE 7 BIGINT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS COLUMNDATATYPE 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 COLUMNDATATYPE 4 org.apache.derby.catalog.TypeDescriptor NOT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS COLUMNDEFAULT 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 COLUMNDEFAULT 5 java.io.Serializable NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS COLUMNDEFAULTID 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 COLUMNDEFAULTID 6 CHAR(36) NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS COLUMNNAME 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 COLUMNNAME 2 VARCHAR(128) NOT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS COLUMNNUMBER 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 COLUMNNUMBER 3 INTEGER NOT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL
SYSCOLUMNS REFERENCEID 8000001e-00d0-fd77-3ed8-000a0a0b1900 REFERENCEID 1 CHAR(36) NOT NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL