Select on empty table but still get column names - php

Question

I want to do a SELECT on an empty table, but i still want to get a single record back with all the column names. I know there are other ways to get the column names from a table, but i want to know if it's possible with some sort of SELECT query.
I know this one works when i run it directly in MySQL:
SELECT * FROM cf_pagetree_elements WHERE 1=0;
But i'm using PHP + PDO (FETCH_CLASS). This just gives me an empty object back instead of an row with all the column names (with empty values). So for some reason that query doesn't work with PDO FETCH_CLASS.
$stmt = $this->db->prepare ( $sql );
$stmt->execute ( $bindings );
$result = $stmt->fetchAll ( \PDO::FETCH_CLASS, $class );
print_r($result); // Empty object... I need an object with column names
Anyone any idea if there's another method that i can try?

Answer 1

Adding on to what w00 answered, there's a solution that doesn't even need a dummy table
SELECT tbl.*
FROM (SELECT 1) AS ignore_me
LEFT JOIN your_table AS tbl
ON 1 = 1
LIMIT 1
In MySQL you can change WHERE 1 = 1 to just WHERE 1

Answer 2

To the other answers who posted about SHOW COLUMNS and the information scheme.
The OP clearly said: "I know there are other ways to get the column names from a table, but i want to know if it's possible with some sort of SELECT query."
Learn to read.
Anyway, to answer your question; No you can't. You cannot select a row from an empty table. Not even a row with empty values, from an empty table.
There is however a trick you can apply to do this.
Create an additional table called 'dummy' with just one column and one row in it:
Table: dummy
dummy_id: 1
That's all. Now you can do a select statement like this:
SELECT * FROM dummy LEFT OUTER JOIN your_table ON 1=1
This will always return one row. It does however contain the 'dummy_id' column too. You can however just ignore that ofcourse and do with the (empty) data what ever you like.
So again, this is just a trick to do it with a SELECT statement. There's no default way to get this done.

Answer 3

SHOW COLUMNS FROM cf_pagetree_elements;
This will give a result set explaining the table structure. You can quite easily parse the result with PHP.
Another method is to query the infomrmation schema table:
SELECT column_name FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='cf_pagetree_elements';
Not really recommended though!

Answer 4

You could try:
SELECT * FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name = "cf_pagetree_elements"
Not sure about your specific PHP+PDO approach (there may be complications), but that's the standard way to fetch column headings (field names).

Answer 5

this will list the columns of ANY query for PDO drivers that support getColumMeta. I am using this with SQL server and works fine even on very complex queries with aliased tables, sub-queries and unions. Gives me columns even when results are zero
<?php
// just an example of an empty query.
$query =$PDOdb->query("SELECT * from something where 1=0; ");
for ($i=0; $i<$query->columnCount(); $i++) {
echo $query->getColumnMeta($i)['name']."<br />";
}
?>

Answer 6

Even without PDO in the way, the database won't return the structure without at least one row. You could do this and ignore the data row:
SELECT * FROM cf_pagetree_elements LIMIT 1;
Or you could simply
DESC cf_pagetree_elements;
and deal with one row per field.
WHERE 1=0 does not work for me. It always returns empty set.

Answer 7

The latest PDO for SQLSVR definitely works with get column meta.
Simply set up your statement and use this to get an array of useful information:
$stmt->execute();
$meta= array();
foreach(range(0, $stmt->columnCount() - 1) as $column_index)
{
array_push($meta,$stmt->getColumnMeta($column_index));
}

Answer 8

Complete solution for Oracle or MySQL
for any or some columns (my goal is to get arbitrary columns exactly as they are in DB regardless of case)
for any table (w or w/o rows)
$qr = <<<SQL
SELECT $cols
FROM (SELECT NULL FROM DUAL)
LEFT JOIN $able t ON 1 = 0
SQL;
$columns = array_keys($con->query($qr)->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)[0]);
if($cols === "*") {
array_shift($columns);
}

Answer 9

YOu could use MetaData with;
$cols = mysql_query("SHOW COLUMNS FROM $tableName", $conn);