PHP get mysql table info function - php

Question

I am making a PHP function to return an array of a mysql database's table's info. I am new to coding in php and am looking for more efficient way to do the same thing I have done because my method does not seem very efficient. Would this be a good place to use a mysql join statement?
Here is my function.
public static function getAllTables()
{
// Get an array of all the tables in the database
$sql = "SHOW TABLES";
//this makes a connection to mysql database using mysqli
$mysqlConnection = new CMySqlConnection();
$result = $mysqlConnection->mysqli->query($sql);
$tablesArray = array();
while($row = $result->fetch_row()) {
$tablesArray[$row[0]]=array();
}
$result->close();
//Get an array of all the table names in database
$arrayKeys = array_keys($tablesArray);
//foreach table get the column's info
foreach($arrayKeys as $key){
$sql=" SHOW COLUMNS from " . $key;
$result = $mysqlConnection->mysqli->query($sql);
for($i = 0; $row = $result->fetch_row(); $i++) {
//format the array to use a descriptive key rather than a number
$row['columnName'] = $row[0];
$row['type'] = $row[1];
$row['null'] = $row[2];
$row['key'] = $row[3];
$row['default'] = $row[4];
$row['extra'] = $row[5];
unset($row[0]);
unset($row[1]);
unset($row[2]);
unset($row[3]);
unset($row[4]);
unset($row[5]);
// put the column info into the tables array
$tablesArray[$key][$i] = $row;
}
$result->close();
}
$mysqlConnection->Disconnect();
// return the tables array
return $tablesArray;
}
Thanks for any input :)

Answer 1

You can just query the INFORMATION_SCHEMA. They are virtual tables which contain information about your database: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/information-schema.html
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES;
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA='schema' AND TABLE_NAME='table';