PHP & MySQL DESCRIBE???

[lelyea]

I am a student taking my first PHP class - semester is almost over and my final project is finished, but I'd like to learn to do something and add it to my project.

I would like to query a table in my database regarding its structure and based on that dynamically create a form to edit contents. So, from the result I'd like to pull the table column names and field lengths, maybe the types. I believe that an mysql DESCRIBE query will get me that information, but how do I go about assigning the return to variables so I can create my form. How do I get the column names instead of the data in a normal query, and how do I get the data type and length?

As always - help is greatly appreciated.

Len

[etully]

mysql> describe home_plan_mod_user_xref;
+------------+-----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type      | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+-----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id         | int(11)   |      | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| cart_guid  | char(20)  | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| plan_alias | char(10)  | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| plan_name  | char(100) | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| locked     | char(1)   | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
| version    | int(11)   | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
+------------+-----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

That table has 6 columns. They can be read like this:

        $query = "describe home_plan_mod_user_xref";
        $result = MYSQL_QUERY($query);
        while (list($x,$y,$z,$a,$b,$c) = @mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
                print "$x,$y,$z,$a,$b,$c<br>";
        }

which displays this:

id,int(11),,PRI,,auto_increment
cart_guid,char(20),YES,,,
plan_alias,char(10),YES,,,
plan_name,char(100),YES,,,
locked,char(1),YES,,,
version,int(11),YES,,,

[etully]

I think that with the ENUM option, you will be able to make drop down menus that are automatically populated with the options that are available to that field.

[lelyea]

This will work great! I'm having trouble figuring out how to split out just the numbers for the field length though. For example, I'm getting char(15). I have tried several things, the latest being:
$size is the char(15) above

$sz = strtok($size, ")"); I get something like char(15
$sz2 = strtok($sz, "("); I get char

if I reverse the above I still get the same thing:

$sz = strtok($size, "("); I get something like char(15
$sz2 = strtok($sz, ")"); I get char

As always - help is greatly appreciated!

Len

[NogDog]

$test = 'varchar(16)';
list($type, $size) = preg_split('/[()]/', $test);
echo "Type: $type<br>Size: $size";