Using DBI for MySQL metadata

[CHap Harrison]

I'm unable to get the information I need from reading the CPAN DBI documentation, and it was suggested I post here for help specifically for MySQL. (FYI I'm using Perl 5.10 and MySQL 5.5/5.6).

I can't seem to find a list of descriptions of the info that's being returned from this:

my $sth_column_info = $dbh->column_info( $catalog, $schema, $table, undef );
my $aoa_ref = $sth_column_info->fetchall_arrayref;

There are 30-some elements in the array for each column. The meaning of some is obvious, the meaning of others is not.

It's also not clear to me how to express the arguments to fetchall_arrayref() to ask for only certain information.

And there are some numeric codes that aren't meaningful without a key.

Is there some documentation, specifically aimed at MySQL, on how to use the DBI for obtaining metadata?