"Wesley Aptekar-Cassels" <me(at)wesleyac(dot)com> writes:
> I am interested in figuring out how to get the names and types of the
> columns from an arbitrary query.
Where do you need this information? Usually the easiest way is to
prepare (plan) the query and then extract metadata, for instance
PQprepare and PQdescribePrepared if using libpq.
regards, tom lane