Application Development

Application development with MariaDB Connector/Python

Field Information

MariaDB Connector/Python provides the Fieldinfo class for retrieving data type and flag information on table columns in the database.

The following example shows how to get the field information for the example table created in Setup for Examples:

Retrieving Field Information for Query Results

To retrieve field information for query results:

1. Import MariaDB Connector/Python:

   # Module Import
   import mariadb

2. Define a select_contacts() function that retrieves all contacts from the table:

   # Print List of Contacts
   def select_contacts(cur):
      """Retrieves the list of contacts from the database"""
   
      # Retrieve Contacts
      cur.execute("SELECT first_name, last_name, email FROM test.contacts")

3. Define a get_field_info() function that prints the field information associated with the cursor:

   # Get field info from cursor
   def get_field_info(cur):
      """Retrieves the field info associated with a cursor"""
   
      field_info = mariadb.fieldinfo()
   
      field_info_text = []
   
      # Retrieve Column Information
      for column in cur.description:
         column_name = column[0]
         column_type = field_info.type(column)
         column_flags = field_info.flag(column)
   
         field_info_text.append(f"{column_name}: {column_type} {column_flags}")
   
      return field_info_text

4. Call these functions, then print the field information:

 try:
   conn = mariadb.connect(
      host="192.0.2.1",
      port=3306,
      user="db_user",
      password="USER_PASSWORD")

   cur = conn.cursor()

   select_contacts(cur)

   field_info_text = get_field_info(cur)

   print("Columns in query results:")

   print("\n".join(field_info_text))

   conn.close()

except Exception as e:
   print(f"Error: {e}")

The results should look like this:

Columns in query results:
first_name: VAR_STRING
last_name: VAR_STRING
email: VAR_STRING

Retrieve Field Information for All Tables

To retrieve field information for all tables:

1. Import MariaDB Connector/Python:

   # Module Import
   import mariadb

2. Define a show_tables() function that executes the SHOW TABLES statement:

   # Get list of tables
   def show_tables(cur):
      """Retrieves the list of tables from the database"""
   
      table_list = []
   
      # Retrieve Contacts
      cur.execute("SHOW TABLES")
   
      for (table,) in cur.fetchall():
         table_list.append(table)
   
      return table_list

3. Define a get_field_info() function that prints the field information associated with the cursor:

   # Get field info from cursor
   def get_field_info(cur):
      """Retrieves the field info associated with a cursor"""
   
      field_info = mariadb.fieldinfo()
   
      field_info_text = []
   
      # Retrieve Column Information
      for column in cur.description:
         column_name = column[0]
         column_type = field_info.type(column)
         column_flags = field_info.flag(column)
   
         field_info_text.append(f"{column_name}: {column_type} {column_flags}")
   
      return field_info_text

4. Define a get_table_field_info() function that prints the field information associated with a table:

   # Get field info from cursor
   def get_table_field_info(cur, table):
      """Retrieves the field info associated with a table"""
   
      # Fetch Table Information
      cur.execute(f"SELECT * FROM {table} LIMIT 1")
   
      field_info_text = get_field_info(cur)
   
      return field_info_text

5. Call these functions, and then print the field information for each table:

try:
   conn = mariadb.connect(
      host="192.0.2.1",
      port=3306,
      user="db_user",
      password="USER_PASSWORD",
      database="test")

   cur = conn.cursor()

   tables = show_tables(cur)

   for table in tables:
      field_info_text = get_table_field_info(cur, table)

      print(f"Columns in table {table}:")
      print("\n".join(field_info_text))
      print("\n")

   conn.close()

except Exception as e:
   print(f"Error: {e}")

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