webid@xxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Currently using Postgresql 7.2.4-5.80 with php 4.2.2.-8.0.8 on a redhat > 8.0 system. > > I am writing some php scripts where I want to generate a list of the > column names in a particular table that the user selects. I could take > the brute force method and hard code the column names but then every > time I add a new table or modify an existing one I would have to modify > the code. What I want is to have a generic function that given the > table name it will pull the column names for my use. > > I need to get the table column names for several tables I have setup. I > know if I do a select * from tablename I can then use the pg_fieldname > function to pull the column names for all columns. > > But I don't think I want to select the entire contents of the table > every time I want to get the names of the columns. I know this will > work but I think performance will be very poor. >... You almost got it - just do "select * from tablename where 0=1", which returns no rows but will give you the fieldnames. A portable and (I think) efficient way to get table column names.
