What is the significance of using INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS in PHP when working with PDO?

When working with PDO in PHP, using INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS allows you to retrieve information about the columns in a database table, such as column names, data types, and constraints. This can be useful for dynamically generating SQL queries or validating input against the database schema. 

<?php
// Connect to the database using PDO
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

// Query the database for column information
$query = "SELECT COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'mytable'";
$stmt = $pdo->query($query);

// Iterate over the results
while ($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
    echo "Column Name: " . $row['COLUMN_NAME'] . ", Data Type: " . $row['DATA_TYPE'] . "<br>";
}
?>

Keywords

INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS PHP PDO database metadata

Related Questions