title: What is the best way to return enum values in MySQL?
body: <p>I need to select the enum values of a column. From searching I've found two ways:</p>
  <pre><code>SELECT column_type FROM information_schema.columns 
  WHERE table_name = 'MyTable' AND column_name = 'MyColumn';
  </code></pre>
  <p>and the other:</p>
  <pre><code>SHOW COLUMNS FROM `mytable` WHERE field = 'type';
  </code></pre>
  <p>Although the first query will give me this info:</p>
  <pre><code>enum('value1','value2','value3')
  </code></pre>
  <p>The second query gives me the same and with additional columns as well. I would prefer to just get those values without the <code>enum()</code> and commas, is it possible, or do I need to parse the values out? Not that it's hard just checking if there is an easier way.</p>
  <p>Assuming there is no easier way, which of the two queries above is better to use? I noticed that the second query doesn't show the query time when I ran it, I almost thought it didn't require any time at all. But if I turn on the profiler I can see that it does take time, but it seem a bit faster. So would the second query be more efficient?</p>