Get table column names in MySQL?

You can use DESCRIBE:

DESCRIBE my_table;

Or in newer versions you can use INFORMATION_SCHEMA:

SELECT COLUMN_NAME
  FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
  WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'my_database' AND TABLE_NAME = 'my_table';

Or you can use SHOW COLUMNS:

SHOW COLUMNS FROM my_table;

Or to get column names with comma in a line:

SELECT group_concat(COLUMN_NAME)
  FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
  WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'my_database' AND TABLE_NAME = 'my_table';

The following SQL statements are nearly equivalent:

SELECT COLUMN_NAME
  FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
 WHERE table_name = 'tbl_name'
  [AND table_schema = 'db_name']
  [AND column_name LIKE 'wild']

SHOW COLUMNS
FROM tbl_name
[FROM db_name]
[LIKE 'wild']

Reference: INFORMATION_SCHEMA COLUMNS

I made a PDO function which returns all the column names in an simple array.

public function getColumnNames($table){
    $sql = "SELECT COLUMN_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE table_name = :table";
    try {
        $core = Core::getInstance();
        $stmt = $core->dbh->prepare($sql);
        $stmt->bindValue(':table', $table, PDO::PARAM_STR);
        $stmt->execute();
        $output = array();
        while($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)){
            $output[] = $row['COLUMN_NAME'];                
        }
        return $output; 
    }

    catch(PDOException $pe) {
        trigger_error('Could not connect to MySQL database. ' . $pe->getMessage() , E_USER_ERROR);
    }
}

The output will be an array:

Array (
[0] => id
[1] => name
[2] => email
[3] => shoe_size
[4] => likes
... )

Sorry for the necro but I like my function ;)

P.S. I have not included the class Core but you can use your own class.. D.S.

There's also this if you prefer:

mysql_query('SHOW COLUMNS FROM tableName');