[ Is it possible to select a column followed by a wildcard (to retrieve all columns) in SQL? ]
This might be a weird question, but I'll ask it anyway. When I'm working on queries, I'm usually interested in only a few particular columns at first and when I'm happy with the result, I'll add other columns to the query.
In other words: first I make it work, then I'll add the details. But I usually end up writing another query (that retrieves all table data) just above my "work-in-progress-query" in order to look at column names and inspect the data at a glance. It would be nice if that extra "retrieve all query" wasn't necessary and if I could just use a wildcard directly.
To state it simple: I'd like to do:
SELECT column, * from myTable;
So let's say I've got a table Person:
id name description number categoryId modified created
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Sven Ugly man 42 67 2014-03-03 2014-03-03
2 Anna Pretty woman 25 33 2014-03-03 2014-03-03
Then I would like to do:
SELECT number, * from Person
Which should be leading to:
number id name description number categoryId modified created
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
67 1 Sven Ugly man 42 67 2014-03-03 2014-03-03
33 2 Anna Pretty woman 25 33 2014-03-03 2014-03-03
Is such a thing possible?
Answer 1
Yes it is possible, and used frequently when testing.
Its not encouraged, as the * results in messy returns with columns sharing names. (especially duplicated columns, refrences and keys etc)
Short answer Yes, but not sensible