Grabbing MySQL column comments

[johnska7]

Hi all,

I've been trying to find an answer to this and as of yet I've had no luck. What I'm trying to do is access the comment field for a mysql column (field) so that I can use it to display information. I know it's possible, as phpmyadmin displays the comments, but I can't figure out how they do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[HuggieBear]

Are comments a feature of MySQL or phpMyAdmin though?

Regards
Huggie

[akitchin]

assuming comments is a feature describing something about the column itself (like the type, special options, etc.), look in the MySQL manual for the DESCRIBE statement.

[HuggieBear]

DESCRIBE doesn't show it... Use SHOW with the 'FULL' keyword...

Change table_name for your table

[code]<?php
$sql = "SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC);
echo $row['Comment'];
?>[/code]

Regards
Huggie

[johnska7]

O.k., Huggie, your idea semi worked...I can see the results when I execute that line in mysql admin, but when I try to execute your code (and other iterations) in a web page, I just get a blank screen. Also, I checked to see how many rows were being returned in the fetch and only 5 were returned...I have well over 3000 rows in the database, and about 13 rows that it shows for "fields" when I execute the SHOW in mysql admin...any idea what might be going on?

[HuggieBear]

Ooops, I forgot the while loop...

[code]<?php
$sql = "SHOW FULL COLUMNS FROM table_name";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)){
  echo "$row['Field'] - $row['Comment']<br>\n";
}
?>[/code]

I also added the 'field' value so that you get the column name too.

Regards
Huggie

[johnska7]

Perfect! I need to figure out how to get it to flow with what I already have, but it's great.

And I figured out why it wasn't showing before...I was selecting the wrong table...TGIF :)