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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