find column names from query - Mailing list pgsql-novice

From Afton & Ray Still
Subject find column names from query
Date
Msg-id 008201c501e0$66f1c570$7c884146@rayshome
Whole thread Raw
In response to Upgrade from v8rc5 to 8.0.0 fails  ("Keith Worthington" <keithw@narrowpathinc.com>)
Responses Re: find column names from query
List pgsql-novice
Hello,
I'm trying to find a way to get the column names of a table, knowing only the table name. (I'm trying to display the contents of various hidden support tables to the DB administrator) 
 
here's what's happening:
user picks a table name from a select list (HTML),
a SELECT * FROM selected_table ... query is sent (PHP)
nested for loops print out the table data (PHP and HTML)
works great to here, although I realize I'm cheating a little.
problem is the data has no column labels.
 
going through the documentation I found the following:
 
SELECT attname::regclass FROM pg_attribute WHERE attrelid = travel::regclass 
 
I'm trying to get the attname, which should be the column name, from the pg_attribute "table"(or catalog?) when attrelid, which should be the table name, which I have.
 
trying this query in PgadminIII I get:
ERROR:  cannot cast type name to regclass 
 
I could go through and hardcode the table data into the application, but I'd prefer not to.
 
Any suggestions to make this work, or for better methods appreciated.
Ray

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