You mentioned "COLUMNS from information_schema", but you can get the same info with a little simpler syntax: 
mysql> SHOW COLUMNS FROM student LIKE 's%';
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type             | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| sex        | enum('F','M')    | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| student_id | int(10) unsigned | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
I suppose that doesn't help much, because you still have to parse out all the stuff in 'Type' and 'Extra'.

In reply to Re: Querying and parsing MySQL data types by kschwab
in thread Querying and parsing MySQL data types by LanX

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