here are the data types that correspond to the TYPE number returned by fetch_field.
thought i would post this here since i couldn't find the info elsewhere.
numerics
-------------
BIT: 16
TINYINT: 1
BOOL: 1
SMALLINT: 2
MEDIUMINT: 9
INTEGER: 3
BIGINT: 8
SERIAL: 8
FLOAT: 4
DOUBLE: 5
DECIMAL: 246
NUMERIC: 246
FIXED: 246
dates
------------
DATE: 10
DATETIME: 12
TIMESTAMP: 7
TIME: 11
YEAR: 13
strings & binary
------------
CHAR: 254
VARCHAR: 253
ENUM: 254
SET: 254
BINARY: 254
VARBINARY: 253
TINYBLOB: 252
BLOB: 252
MEDIUMBLOB: 252
TINYTEXT: 252
TEXT: 252
MEDIUMTEXT: 252
LONGTEXT: 252