php: (newbie) database field definition into array - php

Question

i'd like to write a function which grabs all fields from a database table and puts it in an array.
getting the database fields already works like this:
$sq = "select column_name,data_type from information_schema.columns
where table_name='users'";
i'm just not sure how to store them properly.
when having eg. this database structure:
fieldname type length
--------------------------------
id int 11
username varchar 50
pass varchar 50
lastlogin date
what's the best way to store this data in php in order querying it like this:
$field = myFields["username"];
echo $field->id."/".$field->type."/".field->length;
as you can see i'd like to access the data directly by field name

Answer 1

Make sure you connect to the database first. Then do:
$r = mysql_query('SELECT COLUMN_NAME AS fieldname,
DATA_TYPE AS type,
CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH AS length
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name = "users" AND column_name = "username"');
if ($r)
{
$field = mysql_fetch_object($r);
// $field->type, $field->length, etc.
}

Answer 2

$sql = "YOUR QUERY HERE";
$res = mysql_query($sql);
while ($rowobj = mysql_fetch_object($res)) {
// do what you want to do with $rowobj
echo $rowobj->column_name1 . "<br />\n";
echo $rowobj->column_name2 . "<br />\n";
// ...rest of code...
}
Put your query into $sql variable and replace column_nameX in while loop with columns you SELECTed with your query.

Answer 3

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table");
$result = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
{
$username = $row['username'];
unset($row['username']);
$result[$username] = (object)$row;
}
Then you can access it by using:
$result['username']->id