The INFORMATION_SCHEMA COLUMNS Table Notes The  COLLATION_CHARACTER_SET_APPLICABILITY  columns are equivalent to the first two columns displayed by the  SHOW COLLATION  statement. The  COLUMNS  table provides information about columns in tables. The related  ST_GEOMETRY_COLUMNS table provides information about table columns that store spatial data. See Section 26.3.35, “The INFORMATION_SCHEMA ST_GEOMETRY_COLUMNS Table” . The  COLUMNS  table has these columns: The name of the schema (database) to which the table containing the column belongs. The name of the catalog to which the table containing the column belongs. This value is always  def . The name of the table containing the column. The name of the column. The position of the column within the table.  ORDINAL_POSITION  is necessary because you might want to say  ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION . Unlike  SHOW COLUMNS ,  SELECT  from the  COLUMNS  table does not have automatic ordering. The default value for the column. This is  NULL  if the column has an explicit default of  NULL , or if the column definition includes no  DEFAULT  clause. The column nullability. The value is  YES  if  NULL  values can be stored in the column,  NO  if not. The column data type. The  DATA_TYPE  value is the type name only with no other information. The  COLUMN_TYPE  value contains the type name and possibly other information such as the precision or length. For string columns, the maximum length in characters. For string columns, the maximum length in bytes. 26.3.8 The INFORMATION_SCHEMA COLUMNS Table • TABLE_CATALOG • TABLE_SCHEMA • TABLE_NAME • COLUMN_NAME • ORDINAL_POSITION • COLUMN_DEFAULT • IS_NULLABLE • DATA_TYPE • CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH • CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH • NUMERIC_PRECISION 4782