Bigquery query to find the column names of a table

Question

I need a query to find column names of a table (table metadata) in Bigquery, like the following query in SQL:

SELECT column_name,data_type,data_length,data_p         


        

Answer 1

Update: This is now possible! See the INFORMATION SCHEMA docs and the answers below.

Answer, circa 2012:

It's not currently possible to retrieve table metadata (i.e. column names and types) via a query, though this isn't the first time it's been requested.

Is there a reason you need to do this as a query? Table metadata is available via the tables API.