An easier way to get the type of a column?

Hi there,

I need to return the type of a column, but can't find a function to do
this. Ideally i would like to
select typename(my_column) from my_table;

is there some such-like function?

currently I use:

def get_column_types (table, db):
r = {}
tableoid = db.query (
"SELECT typrelid FROM pg_type WHERE (typname = '" + table + "') "
).getresult ()[0][0]
q = db.query (
"SELECT attname, atttypid FROM pg_attribute WHERE (attrelid = " + `tableoid` + ") "
).getresult ()
a = []
for attr in q:
a.append (attr[0])
r[attr[0]] = db.query (
"SELECT typname FROM pg_type WHERE (typelem = " + `attr[1]` + ") "
).getresult ()[0][0][1:]
return a, r

which is a real pain

many thanks for any help

-paul

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