<p>Is it possible to select from <code>show tables</code> in MySQL?</p>

<pre><code>SELECT * FROM (SHOW TABLES) AS `my_tables`
</code></pre>

<p>Something along these lines, though the above does not work (on 5.0.51a, at least).</p>

Have you looked into querying INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Tables?  As in
```
```
SELECT ic.Table_Name,
    ic.Column_Name,
    ic.data_Type,
    IFNULL(Character_Maximum_Length,'') AS `Max`,
    ic.Numeric_precision as `Precision`,
    ic.numeric_scale as Scale,
    ic.Character_Maximum_Length as VarCharSize,
    ic.is_nullable as Nulls, 
    ic.ordinal_position as OrdinalPos, 
    ic.column_default as ColDefault, 
    ku.ordinal_position as PK,
    kcu.constraint_name,
    kcu.ordinal_position,
    tc.constraint_type
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS ic
    left outer join INFORMATION_SCHEMA.key_column_usage ku
        on ku.table_name = ic.table_name
        and ku.column_name = ic.column_name
    left outer join information_schema.key_column_usage kcu
        on kcu.column_name = ic.column_name
        and kcu.table_name = ic.table_name
    left outer join information_schema.table_constraints tc
        on kcu.constraint_name = tc.constraint_name
order by ic.table_name, ic.ordinal_position;
```
```