How do you get the max_length for a mysql field

Question

MySQL is returning the current field value length in property max_length.

I there a way to get the correct values ?

ie Field part_code is a varchar(32) that returns 3 if it contains the value of "ABC" instead of the expected result of 32

EDIT

original mysql

//--------------------------------------------------------------------------
function build_fields(){
    $idx = 0;
    $num = @mysql_num_fields($this->qry);
    while($idx < $num){
        $field = mysql_fetch_field($this->qry, $idx);
        $this->fields[$field->name] = $field;
        $idx++;
    }
} // function build_fields()
//--------------------------------------------------------------------------

new mysqli

//-------------------------------------------------------------------------- function build_fields(){

foreach(mysqli_fetch_fields($this->qry) as $name => $value){
    $this->fields[$name] = (array) $value;
}

} // function build_fields() //--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Used DESCRIBE table_name and parsed the varchar(32) and int(4,2)

Answer 1

SELECT CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH,
       COLUMN_TYPE 
  FROM `information_schema`.`COLUMNS`
 WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'MySchemaName'
   AND TABLE_NAME = 'MyTableName'
   AND COLUMN_NAME = 'MyColumnName'

Answer 2

In addition to Mark Baker's method , you can also get column information in several other ways:

SHOW  COLUMNS FROM table_name where field='field_name';
// OR
DESCRIBE table_name field_name;

Then you need to parse 'Type' column (it's returned as varchar(32)) to get the max length.