what happens if you try to run the following query
Code:
select TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, DATA_TYPE, NUMERIC_PRECISION, NUMERIC_SCALE, IS_NULLABLE from information_schema.columns;
OK so MySQL doesn't have an integer value describing the column type it returns a text/string/char.. but it does tell you what data type its using. there is no need to work through each data type to find out what internal value the SQL engine is using