Hmm for the previous comment, note that SHOW FIELDS is an alias of SHOW COLUMNS. Very useful if you need to search the mysql-documentation. Here is the link anyway...
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/SHOW_DATABASE_INFO.html
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
mysql_field_type — Get the type of the specified field in a result
This extension was deprecated in PHP 5.5.0, and it was removed in PHP 7.0.0. Instead, the MySQLi or PDO_MySQL extension should be used. See also MySQL: choosing an API guide. Alternatives to this function include:
mysql_field_type() is similar to the mysql_field_name() function. The arguments are identical, but the field type is returned instead.
result
The result resource that is being evaluated. This result comes from a call to mysql_query().
field_offset
The numerical field offset. The
field_offset
starts at 0
. If
field_offset
does not exist, an error of level
E_WARNING
is also issued.
The returned field type
will be one of "int"
, "real"
,
"string"
, "blob"
, and others as
detailed in the » MySQL
documentation.
Example #1 mysql_field_type() example
<?php
mysql_connect("localhost", "mysql_username", "mysql_password");
mysql_select_db("mysql");
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM func");
$fields = mysql_num_fields($result);
$rows = mysql_num_rows($result);
$table = mysql_field_table($result, 0);
echo "Your '" . $table . "' table has " . $fields . " fields and " . $rows . " record(s)\n";
echo "The table has the following fields:\n";
for ($i=0; $i < $fields; $i++) {
$type = mysql_field_type($result, $i);
$name = mysql_field_name($result, $i);
$len = mysql_field_len($result, $i);
$flags = mysql_field_flags($result, $i);
echo $type . " " . $name . " " . $len . " " . $flags . "\n";
}
mysql_free_result($result);
mysql_close();
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
Your 'func' table has 4 fields and 1 record(s) The table has the following fields: string name 64 not_null primary_key binary int ret 1 not_null string dl 128 not_null string type 9 not_null enum
Note:
For backward compatibility, the following deprecated alias may be used: mysql_fieldtype()
Hmm for the previous comment, note that SHOW FIELDS is an alias of SHOW COLUMNS. Very useful if you need to search the mysql-documentation. Here is the link anyway...
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/SHOW_DATABASE_INFO.html
krang at krang dot org dot uk
Condensed version of what KRANG said.
To get info on the MYSQL field type, use this code
<?
$result = mysql_query("SHOW FIELDS FROM db_name");
$i = 1;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { //go through one field at a time
echo "Field $i: ";
print_r($row) //display all information about A field which can be accessed thru the "$row" array.
$i++;
}
?>
Will display something like:
Field 1: Array ( [Field] => SN [Type] => mediumint(8) unsigned [Null] => [Key] => PRI [Default] => [Extra] => auto_increment ) , SN, mediumint(8) unsigned
Field 2: Array ( [Field] => ENTITY_ID [Type] => varchar(20) [Null] => [Key] => [Default] => [Extra] => ) , ENTITY_ID, varchar(20)
Additional to the note below:
If you're using the "SHOW FIELDS" syntax, be sure that you're adding the table name instead of the db name in the "FROM" parameter:
<?php
$result = mysql_query("SHOW FIELDS FROM table");
?>
Also possible:
<?php
$result = mysql_query("SHOW FIELDS FROM table.db");
?>
or this:
<?php
$result = mysql_query("DESCRIBE table");
?>
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/describe.html
For version 4.3.4, types returned are:
STRING, VAR_STRING: string
TINY, SHORT, LONG, LONGLONG, INT24: int
FLOAT, DOUBLE, DECIMAL: real
TIMESTAMP: timestamp
YEAR: year
DATE: date
TIME: time
DATETIME: datetime
TINY_BLOB, MEDIUM_BLOB, LONG_BLOB, BLOB: blob
NULL: null
Any other: unknown
In MySQL 4.1.x, the four TEXT types (TINYTEXT, TEXT, MEDIUMTEXT, and LONGTEXT) return 'blob" as field types, not "string".
The field type returns what PHP classifies the data found in the field, not how it is stored in the database; use the following example to retrieve the MySQL information about the field....
$USERNAME = '';
$PASSWORD = '';
$DATABASE = '';
$TABLE_NAME = '';
mysql_connect('localhost', $USERNAME, $PASSWORD)
or die ("Could not connect");
$result = mysql_query("SHOW FIELDS FROM $DATABASE.$TABLE_NAME");
$i = 0;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo $row['Field'] . ' ' . $row['Type'];
}