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;
}

Answer 2

Use mysql_fetch_field() to view all column data. See manual.

$query = 'select * from myfield';
$result = mysql_query($query);
$i = 0;
while ($i < mysql_num_fields($result))
{
   $fld = mysql_fetch_field($result, $i);
   $myarray[]=$fld->name;
   $i = $i + 1;
}

"Warning This extension is deprecated as of PHP 5.5.0, and will be removed in the future."

Answer 3

i no expert, but this works for me..

$sql = "desc MyTable";
$result = @mysql_query($sql);
while($row = @mysql_fetch_array($result)){
    echo $row[0]."<br>"; // returns the first column of array. in this case Field

      // the below code will return a full array-> Field,Type,Null,Key,Default,Extra    
      // for ($c=0;$c<sizeof($row);$c++){echo @$row[$c]."<br>";}    

}

Answer 4

The simplest solution out of all Answers:

DESC `table name`

or

DESCRIBE `table name`

or

SHOW COLUMNS FROM `table name`

Answer 5

if you use php, use this gist.

it can get select fields full info with no result，and all custom fields such as:

SELECT a.name aname, b.name bname, b.* 
FROM table1 a LEFT JOIN table2 b
ON a.id = b.pid;

if above sql return no data,will also get the field names aname, bname, b's other field name

just two line:

$query_info = mysqli_query($link, $data_source);
$fetch_fields_result = $query_info->fetch_fields();

Answer 6

Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but this worked for me:

$query = query("DESC YourTable");  
$col_names = array_column($query, 'Field');

That returns a simple array of the column names / variable names in your table or array as strings, which is what I needed to dynamically build MySQL queries. My frustration was that I simply don't know how to index arrays in PHP very well, so I wasn't sure what to do with the results from DESC or SHOW. Hope my answer is helpful to beginners like myself!

To check result: print_r($col_names);