MySQL query to get column names?

Question

I\'d like to get all of a mysql table\'s col names into an array in php?

Is there a query for this?

Answer 1

The call of DESCRIBE is working fine to get all columns of a table but if you need to filter on it, you need to use the SHOW COLUMNS FROM instead.

Example of PHP function to get all info of a table :

// get table columns (or return false if table not found)
function get_table_columns($db, $table) {
    
    global $pdo;

    if($cols = $pdo->query("DESCRIBE `$db`.`$table`")) {
        if($cols = $cols->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
            return $cols;
        }
    }
    
    return false;
}

In my case, I had to find the primary key of a table. So, I used :

SHOW COLUMNS FROM `table` WHERE `Key`='PRI';

Here is my PHP function :

// get table Primary Key
function get_table_pk($db, $table) {

    global $pdo;
            
    $q = "SHOW COLUMNS FROM `$db`.`$table` WHERE `Key` = 'PRI'";
    if($cols = $pdo->query($q)) {
        if($cols = $cols->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
            return $cols[0];
        }
    }
    
    return false;
}