mysql get result datatypes without executing the statement

Question

I am wandering is there a way in MySQL to get the datatypes of a query columns, without executing and fetching the query rows.

In Oracle, for exapmle, you can get column datatypes (using dbms_sql.describe_columns) after parsing (dbms_sql.parse) and before executing (dbms_sql.execute) the statement, so you don't need to execute it.

Answer 1

Try this

SELECT column_name, data_type,character_maximum_length 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'yourTable' and TABLE_SCHEMA='yourDBname';

or for more specific result

SELECT DATA_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
  WHERE table_name = 'yourTable' AND COLUMN_NAME = 'yourColumn';

find more information in this link http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/columns-table.html