CREATE TABLE foo(
  id int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  letter char(1) NOT NULL,
  name text NOT NULL,
  num float NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use DBI;
my $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:mysql:test', "", "", { PrintError => 0 , RaiseError => 1});
END { $dbh->disconnect if $dbh }
use Data::Dumper;

my $sth = $dbh->prepare('DESCRIBE foo');
$sth->execute;
while(my $r = $sth->fetchrow_hashref) {
	print Dumper $r;
}

##</code><code>##

$VAR1 = {
          'Extra' => 'auto_increment',
          'Field' => 'id',
          'Default' => undef,
          'Key' => 'PRI',
          'Type' => 'int(10) unsigned',
          'Null' => ''
        };
$VAR1 = {
          'Extra' => '',
          'Field' => 'letter',
          'Default' => '',
          'Key' => '',
          'Type' => 'char(1)',
          'Null' => ''
        };
$VAR1 = {
          'Extra' => '',
          'Field' => 'name',
          'Default' => '',
          'Key' => '',
          'Type' => 'text',
          'Null' => ''
        };
$VAR1 = {
          'Extra' => '',
          'Field' => 'num',
          'Default' => undef,
          'Key' => '',
          'Type' => 'float',
          'Null' => 'YES'
        };