This is something that I find myself having to do quite often, and I've adopted an approach that is very similar to yours, eg:

    #   Check if this table exists on the remote site
    eval {
        $sql = "DESC $thisTable;";
        $dbq = $ibisSite->prepare($sql);
        $dbq->execute;
    };

    if ($@) {
       return($dbq->errstr);
    }
[download]

Interesting to see some of the other responses you have. In particular, the table_info method by [id://snoopy] looks quite clean and transportable.

--Darren