[SOLVED] PHP to detect if a MySQL table column exists

[Napoleon001]

Hi,

Is there a way for PHP to detect if a MySQL table column exists?

I know how to query a table and a particular column and if it doesn't exist it gives an error so if I had to do it a messy way I'll have to do that and just use the error suppression on that query but is there a proper way to do it?

If you want to read more details about my question:
It is because I have multiple sites linked together and some have multiple languages while others only have one. I keep the contents of each language in a column Contents_EN or Contents_FR.
I want the language selector to simply check what columns are available in this site table and display the options if any but I don't really want to do it the messy was as above and I don't really wan't to have a separate table with this info in it.

Any ideas/suggestions greatly appreciated!

Many thanks! [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":smile:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]

[fenway]

You'd have to run a DESCRIBE TABLE and parse the result for your desired column; actually, I think that SHOW COLUMNS has a LIKE option, so maybe you can just check to see if this returns any results. Incidentally, I think that MySQL 5's information schema makes this much easier now.

[crouchjay]

I am not sure how others due it or if there is a simplar way but you can go

"DESCRIBE table"

And that will return

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+---------+----+------+---------+------------------+
| id | int(11) | | PRI | | auto_increment |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Napoleon001]

Thanks for your insight fenway & crouchjay.

I think I need to read up about Describe a bit more. I familiar with it when querying MySQL in a Command Line but not with PHP script... what am I missing out on... [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/unsure.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":unsure:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"unsure.gif\" /]

[ryanlwh]

use SHOW COLUMNS FROM table LIKE 'pattern'. Then you don't have to loop through the DESC result.

[bluebyyou]

So can I use mysql_num_rows() on the result from "SHOW COLUMNS FROM table LIKE 'pattern'" Or is there some other function to achieve the same thing?

[bluebyyou]

I just tried it, and the answer was yes mysql_num_rows() works the same on that as any other result.