ben dot NOSPAM at NOSPAM dot seraphire dot com (2012-12-06 16:01:36)

This may be obvious, but the constants for the field types are already defined in PHP, and can be found in the documentation at: http://php.net/manual/en/mysqli.constants.php

bl at example dot com (2010-08-09 22:11:26)

note that
"SELECT <timestamp-field>, ..."
will return the field with type 7 (timestamp) but with content like "2010-07-14 14:35:08". the point being it is a string.
"SELECT <timestamp-field> + 0, ..."
returns a type 5 (double) but while a number, is not seconds since epoch, but a number in MySQL's "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" format, in this example:
20100714143508
(PHP 5.2.12)

shoresofnowhere at gmail dot com (2009-08-26 03:50:31)

Beware of the fact that the ->def property NEVER gets filled with the correct default field value, so it's totally USELESS.
This happens NOT for a bug in php (so don't go filling in a bug report), but happens BY DESIGN, since the MySQL C API call doesn't fill in this value, unless you call the mysql_list_fields() function, which Php doesn't.
See here for reference.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/c-api-datatypes.html
Also, be aware that if you're using a query which contains subqueries, the primary key/autoincrement flags do NOT get passed along, even if the field you're looking at is the primary autoincrement key of the master table:
SELECT * from (SELECT id from areas) AS subareas
and you'll find primary key and autoinc flags off on id field, even if id was the primary autoinc key of areas table.
This also is by design, i think, since it's supposed that if we're using a subquery then the primary key/autoinc stuff might have no sense at all, since in the result set we can compose fileds from many different tables.
Hoping this is useful, bye!

gcdreak at example dot com (2009-08-18 15:28:15)

I wrote a simple class to get info about fields.
Try it!

<?php
            class MysqlFieldsInfo implements Iterator
            {
                
                private $result;
                private $position;
                private $row;
                
                
                function __construct($result){
                    $this->result = $result;
                    $this->position = 0;
                    $this->rewind();    // W $results wewn?trzny wska?nik mo?e by? przesuni?ty wi?c powracamy do pocz?tku
                }
                
                public function current(){
                    return $this->row;
                }
                
                public function next(){
                    $this->position++;
                    $this->row = $this->result->fetch_field();    
                }
                
                public function valid(){
                    return (boolean) $this->row;
                }
                
                public function key(){
                    return $this->position;
                }
                
                public function rewind(){
                    $this->position = 0;
                    $this->result->field_seek(0);
                    $this->next();
                }
                
                //    This function show data in table
                public function export(){
                    
                    echo '<table id="db_table_info">';
                    echo '<tr>
                                                <th>Name</th>
                                                <th>Orgname</th>
                                                <th>Table</th>
                                                <th>Orgtable</th>
                                                <th>Def</th>
                                                 <th>Max_length</th>
                                                 <th>Length</th>
                                                 <th>Charsetnr</th>
                                                 <th>Flags</th>
                                                 <th>Type</th>
                                                  <th>Decimals</th>
                                          </tr>';
                    while($this->valid()){
                        echo '<tr>';
                        printf("\n\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->name);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->orgname);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->orgtable);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->def);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->max_length);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->length);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->charsetnr);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->flags);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->type);
                        printf("\t<td>%s</td>\n", $this->current()->decimals);

                        echo '</tr>';        
            
                        $this->next();
                    }
                    
                    echo '</table>';
                }
            }
?>

daniel at summit cove dot com (2009-02-22 15:36:43)

Here's a bigger list of data types.  I got this by creating every type I could and calling fetch_fields():

<?php
$mysql_data_type_hash = array(
    1=>'tinyint',
    2=>'smallint',
    3=>'int',
    4=>'float',
    5=>'double',
    7=>'timestamp',
    8=>'bigint',
    9=>'mediumint',
    10=>'date',
    11=>'time',
    12=>'datetime',
    13=>'year',
    16=>'bit',
    //252 is currently mapped to all text and blob types (MySQL 5.0.51a)
    253=>'varchar',
    254=>'char',
    246=>'decimal'
);
?>

cjs at ashdowntech dot com (2008-09-16 21:52:27)

According to
http://www.redferni.uklinux.net/mysql/MySQL-Protocol.html
Data type values are:
DECIMAL 0 ENUM 247
TINY 1 SET 248
SHORT 2 TINY_BLOB 249
LONG 3 MEDIUM_BLOB 250
FLOAT 4 LONG_BLOB 251
DOUBLE 5 BLOB 252
NULL 6 VAR_STRING 253
TIMESTAMP 7 STRING 254
LONGLONG 8 GEOMETRY 255
INT24 9
DATE 10
TIME 11
DATETIME 12
YEAR 13
NEWDATE 14
Note that this is not tested and does not contain
all the values noted by deluxmozart

cjs at ashdowntech dot com (2008-09-12 20:00:20)

According to
dev.mysql.com/sources/doxygen/mysql-5.1/mysql__com_8h-source.html
the flag bits are:

NOT_NULL_FLAG 1 /* Field can't be NULL */
PRI_KEY_FLAG 2 /* Field is part of a primary key */
UNIQUE_KEY_FLAG 4 /* Field is part of a unique key */
MULTIPLE_KEY_FLAG 8 /* Field is part of a key */
BLOB_FLAG 16 /* Field is a blob */
UNSIGNED_FLAG 32 /* Field is unsigned */
ZEROFILL_FLAG 64 /* Field is zerofill */
BINARY_FLAG 128 /* Field is binary */
ENUM_FLAG 256 /* field is an enum */
AUTO_INCREMENT_FLAG 512 /* field is a autoincrement field */
TIMESTAMP_FLAG 1024 /* Field is a timestamp */

deluxmozart at yahoo dot de (2008-07-24 11:05:23)

Here are some Numbers of Datatypes. I searched for it but i didn't find a list, where the datatypes of the numbers are listed.
so first I can give this:
3 - Int
10 - Date
246 - Decimal
252 - text
253 - VarChar
254 - Boolean