Fetch meta-data for a single field

# mysqli_result::fetch_field_direct

# mysqli_fetch_field_direct

(PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

mysqli_result::fetch_field_direct -- mysqli_fetch_field_direct — Fetch meta-data for a single field

### Description

Object-oriented style

public mysqli_result::fetch_field_direct(int `$index`): object|false

Procedural style

mysqli_fetch_field_direct(mysqli_result `$result`, int `$index`): object|false

Returns an object which contains field definition information from the specified result set.

### Parameters

`result`

  Procedural style only: A mysqli_result object returned by mysqli_query(), mysqli_store_result(), mysqli_use_result() or mysqli_stmt_get_result().

`index`

  The field number. This value must be in the range from `0` to `number of fields - 1`.

### Return Values

Returns an object which contains field definition information or `false` if no field information for specified `index` is available.

Object properties
Property | Description
--- | ---
name | The name of the column
orgname | Original column name if an alias was specified
table | The name of the table this field belongs to (if not calculated)
orgtable | Original table name if an alias was specified
def | Unused. Always an empty string
db | The name of the database
catalog | Unused. Always `"def"`
max_length | The maximum width of the field for the result set. As of PHP 8.1, this value is always `0`.
length | The width of the field in bytes. For string columns, the length value varies on the connection character set. For example, if the character set is `latin1`, a single-byte character set, the length value for a `SELECT 'abc'` query is 3. If the character set is `utf8mb4`, a multibyte character set in which characters take up to 4 bytes, the length value is 12.
charsetnr | The character set number for the field.
flags | An integer representing the bit-flags for the field.
type | The data type used for this field
decimals | The number of decimals for numeric fields, and the fractional seconds precision for temporal fields.

### Examples

Example #1 Object-oriented style

`<?php
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
exit();
}
$query = "SELECT Name, SurfaceArea from Country ORDER BY Name LIMIT 5";
if ($result = $mysqli->query($query)) {
/* Get field information for column 'SurfaceArea' */
$finfo = $result->fetch_field_direct(1);
printf("Name: %s\n", $finfo->name);
printf("Table: %s\n", $finfo->table);
printf("max. Len: %d\n", $finfo->max_length);
printf("Flags: %d\n", $finfo->flags);
printf("Type: %d\n", $finfo->type);
$result->close();
}
/* close connection */
$mysqli->close();
?>`

Example #2 Procedural style

`<?php
$link = mysqli_connect("localhost", "my_user", "my_password", "world");
/* check connection */
if (mysqli_connect_errno()) {
printf("Connect failed: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error());
exit();
}
$query = "SELECT Name, SurfaceArea from Country ORDER BY Name LIMIT 5";
if ($result = mysqli_query($link, $query)) {
/* Get field information for column 'SurfaceArea' */
$finfo = mysqli_fetch_field_direct($result, 1);
printf("Name: %s\n", $finfo->name);
printf("Table: %s\n", $finfo->table);
printf("max. Len: %d\n", $finfo->max_length);
printf("Flags: %d\n", $finfo->flags);
printf("Type: %d\n", $finfo->type);
mysqli_free_result($result);
}
/* close connection */
mysqli_close($link);
?>`

The above examples will output:

    Name:     SurfaceArea
    Table:    Country
    max. Len: 10
    Flags:    32769
    Type:     4

### See Also

- mysqli_num_fields() - Gets the number of fields in the result set
- mysqli_fetch_field() - Returns the next field in the result set
- mysqli_fetch_fields() - Returns an array of objects representing the fields in a result set

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