What are some potential pitfalls to be aware of when trying to retrieve MySQL column types in PHP?

One potential pitfall when trying to retrieve MySQL column types in PHP is that the returned data may not always match the expected types due to MySQL's type conversion rules. To ensure accurate column types, you can use the `mysqli_fetch_fields()` function to retrieve information about each field, including the data type. 

// Connect to MySQL database
$connection = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Execute query
$result = mysqli_query($connection, "SELECT * FROM table");

// Get column types
$fields = mysqli_fetch_fields($result);

// Loop through fields and display data types
foreach ($fields as $field) {
    echo "Field: " . $field->name . ", Type: " . $field->type . "<br>";
}

// Close connection
mysqli_close($connection);

Keywords

MySQL column types PHP data retrieval error handling

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