[sql] SQL select join: is it possible to prefix all columns as 'prefix.*'?

I'm wondering if this is possible in SQL. Say you have two tables A and B, and you do a select on table A and join on table B:

SELECT a.*, b.* FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id);

If table A has columns 'a_id', 'name', and 'some_id', and table B has 'b_id', 'name', and 'some_id', the query will return columns 'a_id', 'name', 'some_id', 'b_id', 'name', 'some_id'. Is there any way to prefix the column names of table B without listing every column individually? The equivalent of this:

SELECT a.*, b.b_id as 'b.b_id', b.name as 'b.name', b.some_id as 'b.some_id'
FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id);

But, as mentioned, without listing every column, so something like:

SELECT a.*, b.* as 'b.*'
FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id);

Basically something to say, "prefix every column returned by b.* with 'something'". Is this possible or am I out of luck?

EDITS

Advice on not using SELECT * and so on is valid advice but not relevant in my context, so please stick to the problem at hand -- is it possible to add a prefix (a constant specified in the SQL query) to all the column names of a table in a join?

My ultimate goal is to be able to do a SELECT * on two tables with a join, and be able to tell, from the names of the columns I get in my result set, which columns came from table A and which columns came from table B. Again, I don't want to have to list columns individually, I need to be able to do a SELECT *.

PHP 7.2 + MySQL/Mariadb

MySQL will send you multiple fields with the same name. Even in the terminal client. But if you want an associative array, you'll have to make the keys yourself.

Thanks to @axelbrz for the original. I've ported it to newer php and cleaned it up a little:

function mysqli_rows_with_columns($link, $query) {
    $result = mysqli_query($link, $query);
    if (!$result) {
        return mysqli_error($link);
    }
    $field_count = mysqli_num_fields($result);
    $fields = array();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $field_count; $i++) {
        $field = mysqli_fetch_field_direct($result, $i);
        $fields[] = $field->table . '.' . $field->name; # changed by AS
        #$fields[] = $field->orgtable . '.' . $field->orgname; # actual table/field names
    }
    $rows = array();
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)) {
        $new_row = array();
        for ($i = 0; $i < $field_count; $i++) {
            $new_row[$fields[$i]] = $row[$i];
        }
        $rows[] = $new_row;
    }
    mysqli_free_result($result);
    return $rows;
}

$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'fixme', 'fixme', 'fixme');
print_r(mysqli_rows_with_columns($link, 'select foo.*, bar.* from foo, bar'));

I am in kind of the same boat as OP - I have dozens of fields from 3 different tables that I'm joining, some of which have the same name(ie. id, name, etc). I don't want to list each field, so my solution was to alias those fields that shared a name and use select * for those that have a unique name.

For example :

table a : id, name, field1, field2 ...

table b : id, name, field3, field4 ...

select a.id as aID, a.name as aName, a. * , b.id as bID, b.name as bName, b. * .....

When accessing the results I us the aliased names for these fields and ignore the "original" names.

Maybe not the best solution but it works for me....i'm use mysql

Or you could use Red Gate SQL Refactor or SQL Prompt, which expands your SELECT * into column lists with a click of the Tab button

so in your case, if you type in SELECT * FROM A JOIN B ... Go to the end of *, Tab button, voila! you'll see SELECT A.column1, A.column2, .... , B.column1, B.column2 FROM A JOIN B

It's not free though

I totally understand why this is necessary - at least for me it's handy during rapid prototyping when there are a lot of tables necessary to be joined, including many inner joins. As soon as a column name is the same in a second "joinedtable.*" field wild card, the main table's field values are overriden with the joinedtable values. Error prone, frustrating and a violation of DRY when having to manually specify the table fields with aliases over and over...

Here is a PHP (Wordpress) function to achieve this through code generation together with an example of how to use it. In the example, it is used to rapidly generate a custom query that will provide the fields of a related wordpress post that was referenced through a advanced custom fields field.

function prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($table, $alias)
{
    global $wpdb;
    $columns = $wpdb->get_results("SHOW COLUMNS FROM $table", ARRAY_A);

    $field_names = array();
    foreach ($columns as $column)
    {
        $field_names[] = $column["Field"];
    }
    $prefixed = array();
    foreach ($field_names as $field_name)
    {
        $prefixed[] = "`{$alias}`.`{$field_name}` AS `{$alias}.{$field_name}`";
    }

    return implode(", ", $prefixed);
}

function test_prefixed_table_fields_wildcard()
{
    global $wpdb;

    $query = "
    SELECT
        " . prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($wpdb->posts, 'campaigns') . ",
        " . prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($wpdb->posts, 'venues') . "
        FROM $wpdb->posts AS campaigns
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->postmeta meta1 ON (meta1.meta_key = 'venue' AND campaigns.ID = meta1.post_id)
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->posts venues ON (venues.post_status = 'publish' AND venues.post_type = 'venue' AND venues.ID = meta1.meta_value)
    WHERE 1
    AND campaigns.post_status = 'publish'
    AND campaigns.post_type = 'campaign'
    LIMIT 1
    ";

    echo "<pre>$query</pre>";

    $posts = $wpdb->get_results($query, OBJECT);

    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($posts);
    echo "</pre>";
}

The output:

SELECT
    `campaigns`.`ID` AS `campaigns.ID`, `campaigns`.`post_author` AS `campaigns.post_author`, `campaigns`.`post_date` AS `campaigns.post_date`, `campaigns`.`post_date_gmt` AS `campaigns.post_date_gmt`, `campaigns`.`post_content` AS `campaigns.post_content`, `campaigns`.`post_title` AS `campaigns.post_title`, `campaigns`.`post_excerpt` AS `campaigns.post_excerpt`, `campaigns`.`post_status` AS `campaigns.post_status`, `campaigns`.`comment_status` AS `campaigns.comment_status`, `campaigns`.`ping_status` AS `campaigns.ping_status`, `campaigns`.`post_password` AS `campaigns.post_password`, `campaigns`.`post_name` AS `campaigns.post_name`, `campaigns`.`to_ping` AS `campaigns.to_ping`, `campaigns`.`pinged` AS `campaigns.pinged`, `campaigns`.`post_modified` AS `campaigns.post_modified`, `campaigns`.`post_modified_gmt` AS `campaigns.post_modified_gmt`, `campaigns`.`post_content_filtered` AS `campaigns.post_content_filtered`, `campaigns`.`post_parent` AS `campaigns.post_parent`, `campaigns`.`guid` AS `campaigns.guid`, `campaigns`.`menu_order` AS `campaigns.menu_order`, `campaigns`.`post_type` AS `campaigns.post_type`, `campaigns`.`post_mime_type` AS `campaigns.post_mime_type`, `campaigns`.`comment_count` AS `campaigns.comment_count`,
    `venues`.`ID` AS `venues.ID`, `venues`.`post_author` AS `venues.post_author`, `venues`.`post_date` AS `venues.post_date`, `venues`.`post_date_gmt` AS `venues.post_date_gmt`, `venues`.`post_content` AS `venues.post_content`, `venues`.`post_title` AS `venues.post_title`, `venues`.`post_excerpt` AS `venues.post_excerpt`, `venues`.`post_status` AS `venues.post_status`, `venues`.`comment_status` AS `venues.comment_status`, `venues`.`ping_status` AS `venues.ping_status`, `venues`.`post_password` AS `venues.post_password`, `venues`.`post_name` AS `venues.post_name`, `venues`.`to_ping` AS `venues.to_ping`, `venues`.`pinged` AS `venues.pinged`, `venues`.`post_modified` AS `venues.post_modified`, `venues`.`post_modified_gmt` AS `venues.post_modified_gmt`, `venues`.`post_content_filtered` AS `venues.post_content_filtered`, `venues`.`post_parent` AS `venues.post_parent`, `venues`.`guid` AS `venues.guid`, `venues`.`menu_order` AS `venues.menu_order`, `venues`.`post_type` AS `venues.post_type`, `venues`.`post_mime_type` AS `venues.post_mime_type`, `venues`.`comment_count` AS `venues.comment_count`
    FROM wp_posts AS campaigns
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta meta1 ON (meta1.meta_key = 'venue' AND campaigns.ID = meta1.post_id)
LEFT JOIN wp_posts venues ON (venues.post_status = 'publish' AND venues.post_type = 'venue' AND venues.ID = meta1.meta_value)
WHERE 1
AND campaigns.post_status = 'publish'
AND campaigns.post_type = 'campaign'
LIMIT 1

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [campaigns.ID] => 33
            [campaigns.post_author] => 2
            [campaigns.post_date] => 2012-01-16 19:19:10
            [campaigns.post_date_gmt] => 2012-01-16 19:19:10
            [campaigns.post_content] => Lorem ipsum
            [campaigns.post_title] => Lorem ipsum
            [campaigns.post_excerpt] => 
            [campaigns.post_status] => publish
            [campaigns.comment_status] => closed
            [campaigns.ping_status] => closed
            [campaigns.post_password] => 
            [campaigns.post_name] => lorem-ipsum
            [campaigns.to_ping] => 
            [campaigns.pinged] => 
            [campaigns.post_modified] => 2012-01-16 21:01:55
            [campaigns.post_modified_gmt] => 2012-01-16 21:01:55
            [campaigns.post_content_filtered] => 
            [campaigns.post_parent] => 0
            [campaigns.guid] => http://example.com/?p=33
            [campaigns.menu_order] => 0
            [campaigns.post_type] => campaign
            [campaigns.post_mime_type] => 
            [campaigns.comment_count] => 0
            [venues.ID] => 84
            [venues.post_author] => 2
            [venues.post_date] => 2012-01-16 20:12:05
            [venues.post_date_gmt] => 2012-01-16 20:12:05
            [venues.post_content] => Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
            [venues.post_title] => Lorem ipsum venue
            [venues.post_excerpt] => 
            [venues.post_status] => publish
            [venues.comment_status] => closed
            [venues.ping_status] => closed
            [venues.post_password] => 
            [venues.post_name] => lorem-ipsum-venue
            [venues.to_ping] => 
            [venues.pinged] => 
            [venues.post_modified] => 2012-01-16 20:53:37
            [venues.post_modified_gmt] => 2012-01-16 20:53:37
            [venues.post_content_filtered] => 
            [venues.post_parent] => 0
            [venues.guid] => http://example.com/?p=84
            [venues.menu_order] => 0
            [venues.post_type] => venue
            [venues.post_mime_type] => 
            [venues.comment_count] => 0
        )
)

Or you could use Red Gate SQL Refactor or SQL Prompt, which expands your SELECT * into column lists with a click of the Tab button

so in your case, if you type in SELECT * FROM A JOIN B ... Go to the end of *, Tab button, voila! you'll see SELECT A.column1, A.column2, .... , B.column1, B.column2 FROM A JOIN B

It's not free though

It seems the answer to your question is no, however one hack you can use is to assign a dummy column to separate each new table. This works especially well if you're looping through a result set for a list of columns in a scripting language such as Python or PHP.

SELECT '' as table1_dummy, table1.*, '' as table2_dummy, table2.*, '' as table3_dummy, table3.* FROM table1
JOIN table2 ON table2.table1id = table1.id
JOIN table3 ON table3.table1id = table1.id

I realize this doesn't answer your question exactly, but if you're a coder this is a great way to separate tables with duplicate column names. Hope this helps somebody.

DIfferent database products will give you different answers; but you're setting yourself up for hurt if you carry this very far. You're far better off choosing the columns you want, and giving them your own aliases so the identity of each column is crystal-clear, and you can tell them apart in the results.

Recently ran into this issue in NodeJS and Postgres.

ES6 approach

There aren't any RDBMS features I know of that provide this functionality, so I created an object containing all my fields, e.g.:

const schema = { columns: ['id','another_column','yet_another_column'] }

Defined a reducer to concatenate the strings together with a table name:

const prefix = (table, columns) => columns.reduce((previous, column) => {
  previous.push(table + '.' + column + ' AS ' + table + '_' + column);
  return previous;
}, []);

This returns an array of strings. Call it for each table and combine the results:

const columns_joined = [...prefix('tab1',schema.columns), ...prefix('tab2',schema.columns)];

Output the final SQL statement:

console.log('SELECT ' + columns_joined.join(',') + ' FROM tab1, tab2 WHERE tab1.id = tab2.id');

PHP 7.2 + MySQL/Mariadb

MySQL will send you multiple fields with the same name. Even in the terminal client. But if you want an associative array, you'll have to make the keys yourself.

Thanks to @axelbrz for the original. I've ported it to newer php and cleaned it up a little:

function mysqli_rows_with_columns($link, $query) {
    $result = mysqli_query($link, $query);
    if (!$result) {
        return mysqli_error($link);
    }
    $field_count = mysqli_num_fields($result);
    $fields = array();
    for ($i = 0; $i < $field_count; $i++) {
        $field = mysqli_fetch_field_direct($result, $i);
        $fields[] = $field->table . '.' . $field->name; # changed by AS
        #$fields[] = $field->orgtable . '.' . $field->orgname; # actual table/field names
    }
    $rows = array();
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($result)) {
        $new_row = array();
        for ($i = 0; $i < $field_count; $i++) {
            $new_row[$fields[$i]] = $row[$i];
        }
        $rows[] = $new_row;
    }
    mysqli_free_result($result);
    return $rows;
}

$link = mysqli_connect('localhost', 'fixme', 'fixme', 'fixme');
print_r(mysqli_rows_with_columns($link, 'select foo.*, bar.* from foo, bar'));

Developing from this solution, this is how I would approach the problem:

First create a list of all the AS statements:

DECLARE @asStatements varchar(8000)

SELECT @asStatements = ISNULL(@asStatements + ', ','') + QUOTENAME(table_name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(column_name) + ' AS ' + '[' + table_name + '.' + column_name + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_A' OR TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_B'
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

Then use it in your query:

EXEC('SELECT ' + @asStatements + ' FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id)');

However, this might need modifications because something similar is only tested in SQL Server. But this code doesn't exactly work in SQL Server because USING is not supported.

Please comment if you can test/correct this code for e.g. MySQL.

In postgres, I use the json functions to instead return json objects.... then, after querying, I json_decode the fields with a _json suffix.

IE:

select row_to_json(tab1.*),tab1_json, row_to_json(tab2.*) tab2_json 
 from tab1
 join tab2 on tab2.t1id=tab1.id

then in PHP (or any other language), I loop through the returned columns and json_decode() them if they have the "_json" suffix (also removing the suffix. In the end, I get an object called "tab1" that includes all tab1 fields, and another called "tab2" that includes all tab2 fields.

The only database I know that does this is SQLite, depending on the settings you configure with PRAGMA full_column_names and PRAGMA short_column_names. See http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html

Otherwise all I can recommend is to fetch columns in a result set by ordinal position rather than by column name, if it's too much trouble for you to type the names of the columns in your query.

This is a good example of why it's bad practice to use SELECT * -- because eventually you'll have a need to type out all the column names anyway.

I understand the need to support columns that may change name or position, but using wildcards makes that harder, not easier.

Or you could use Red Gate SQL Refactor or SQL Prompt, which expands your SELECT * into column lists with a click of the Tab button

so in your case, if you type in SELECT * FROM A JOIN B ... Go to the end of *, Tab button, voila! you'll see SELECT A.column1, A.column2, .... , B.column1, B.column2 FROM A JOIN B

It's not free though

There is no SQL standard for this.

However With code generation (either on demand as the tables are created or altered or at runtime), you can do this quite easily:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_a](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_a] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_b](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_b] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

DECLARE @table1_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table1_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @join_condition AS varchar(255)
SET @table1_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_a'
SET @table1_prefix = 'a_'
SET @table2_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_b'
SET @table2_prefix = 'b_'
SET @join_condition = 'a.[id] = b.[id]'

DECLARE @CRLF AS varchar(2)
SET @CRLF = CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)

DECLARE @a_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @b_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @sql AS varchar(MAX)

SELECT @a_columnlist = COALESCE(@a_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'a.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table1_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table1_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SELECT @b_columnlist = COALESCE(@b_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'b.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table2_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table2_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SET @sql = 'SELECT ' + @a_columnlist + '
,' + @b_columnlist + '
FROM [' + @table1_name + '] AS a
INNER JOIN [' + @table2_name + '] AS b
ON (' + @join_condition + ')'

PRINT @sql
-- EXEC (@sql)

It seems the answer to your question is no, however one hack you can use is to assign a dummy column to separate each new table. This works especially well if you're looping through a result set for a list of columns in a scripting language such as Python or PHP.

SELECT '' as table1_dummy, table1.*, '' as table2_dummy, table2.*, '' as table3_dummy, table3.* FROM table1
JOIN table2 ON table2.table1id = table1.id
JOIN table3 ON table3.table1id = table1.id

I realize this doesn't answer your question exactly, but if you're a coder this is a great way to separate tables with duplicate column names. Hope this helps somebody.

I totally understand your problem about duplicated field names.

I needed that too until I coded my own function to solve it. If you are using PHP you can use it, or code yours in the language you are using for if you have this following facilities.

The trick here is that mysql_field_table() returns the table name and mysql_field_name() the field for each row in the result if it's got with mysql_num_fields() so you can mix them in a new array.

This prefixes all columns ;)

Regards,

function mysql_rows_with_columns($query) {
    $result = mysql_query($query);
    if (!$result) return false; // mysql_error() could be used outside
    $fields = mysql_num_fields($result);
    $rows = array();
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { 
        $newRow = array();
        for ($i=0; $i<$fields; $i++) {
            $table = mysql_field_table($result, $i);
            $name = mysql_field_name($result, $i);
            $newRow[$table . "." . $name] = $row[$i];
        }
        $rows[] = $newRow;
    }
    mysql_free_result($result);
    return $rows;
}

I solved a similar problem of mine by renaming the fields in the tables involved. Yes, I had the privilege of doing this and understand that everybody may not have it. I added prefix to each field within a table representing the table name. Thus the SQL posted by OP would remain unchanged -

SELECT a.*, b.* FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id);

and still give the expected results - ease of identifying which table the output fields belongs to.

DIfferent database products will give you different answers; but you're setting yourself up for hurt if you carry this very far. You're far better off choosing the columns you want, and giving them your own aliases so the identity of each column is crystal-clear, and you can tell them apart in the results.

There are two ways I can think of to make this happen in a reusable way. One is to rename all of your columns with a prefix for the table they have come from. I have seen this many times, but I really don't like it. I find that it's redundant, causes a lot of typing, and you can always use aliases when you need to cover the case of a column name having an unclear origin.

The other way, which I would recommend you do in your situation if you are committed to seeing this through, is to create views for each table that alias the table names. Then you join against those views, rather than the tables. That way, you are free to use * if you wish, free to use the original tables with original column names if you wish, and it also makes writing any subsequent queries easier because you have already done the renaming work in the views.

Finally, I am not clear why you need to know which table each of the columns came from. Does this matter? Ultimately what matters is the data they contain. Whether UserID came from the User table or the UserQuestion table doesn't really matter. It matters, of course, when you need to update it, but at that point you should already know your schema well enough to determine that.

There are two ways I can think of to make this happen in a reusable way. One is to rename all of your columns with a prefix for the table they have come from. I have seen this many times, but I really don't like it. I find that it's redundant, causes a lot of typing, and you can always use aliases when you need to cover the case of a column name having an unclear origin.

The other way, which I would recommend you do in your situation if you are committed to seeing this through, is to create views for each table that alias the table names. Then you join against those views, rather than the tables. That way, you are free to use * if you wish, free to use the original tables with original column names if you wish, and it also makes writing any subsequent queries easier because you have already done the renaming work in the views.

Finally, I am not clear why you need to know which table each of the columns came from. Does this matter? Ultimately what matters is the data they contain. Whether UserID came from the User table or the UserQuestion table doesn't really matter. It matters, of course, when you need to update it, but at that point you should already know your schema well enough to determine that.

select * usually makes for bad code, as new columns tend to get added or order of columns change in tables quite frequently which usually breaks select * in a very subtle ways. So listing out columns is the right solution.

As to how to do your query, not sure about mysql but in sqlserver you could select column names from syscolumns and dynamically build the select clause.

This question is very useful in practice. It's only necessary to list every explicit columns in software programming, where you pay particular careful to deal with all conditions.

Imagine when debugging, or, try to use DBMS as daily office tool, instead of something alterable implementation of specific programmer's abstract underlying infrastructure, we need to code a lot of SQLs. The scenario can be found everywhere, like database conversion, migration, administration, etc. Most of these SQLs will be executed only once and never be used again, give the every column names is just waste of time. And don't forget the invention of SQL isn't only for the programmers use.

Usually I will create a utility view with column names prefixed, here is the function in pl/pgsql, it's not easy but you can convert it to other procedure languages.

-- Create alias-view for specific table.

create or replace function mkaview(schema varchar, tab varchar, prefix varchar)
    returns table(orig varchar, alias varchar) as $$
declare
    qtab varchar;
    qview varchar;
    qcol varchar;
    qacol varchar;
    v record;
    sql varchar;
    len int;
begin
    qtab := '"' || schema || '"."' || tab || '"';
    qview := '"' || schema || '"."av' || prefix || tab || '"';
    sql := 'create view ' || qview || ' as select';

    for v in select * from information_schema.columns
            where table_schema = schema and table_name = tab
    loop
        qcol := '"' || v.column_name || '"';
        qacol := '"' || prefix || v.column_name || '"';

        sql := sql || ' ' || qcol || ' as ' || qacol;
        sql := sql || ', ';

        return query select qcol::varchar, qacol::varchar;
    end loop;

    len := length(sql);
    sql := left(sql, len - 2); -- trim the trailing ', '.
    sql := sql || ' from ' || qtab;

    raise info 'Execute SQL: %', sql;
    execute sql;
end
$$ language plpgsql;

Examples:

-- This will create a view "avp_person" with "p_" prefix to all column names.
select * from mkaview('public', 'person', 'p_');

select * from avp_person;

The only database I know that does this is SQLite, depending on the settings you configure with PRAGMA full_column_names and PRAGMA short_column_names. See http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html

Otherwise all I can recommend is to fetch columns in a result set by ordinal position rather than by column name, if it's too much trouble for you to type the names of the columns in your query.

This is a good example of why it's bad practice to use SELECT * -- because eventually you'll have a need to type out all the column names anyway.

I understand the need to support columns that may change name or position, but using wildcards makes that harder, not easier.

Cant do this without aliasing , simply because, how are you going to reference a field in the where clause, if that field exists in the 2 or 3 tables you are joining? It will be unclear for mysql which one you are trying to reference.

There are two ways I can think of to make this happen in a reusable way. One is to rename all of your columns with a prefix for the table they have come from. I have seen this many times, but I really don't like it. I find that it's redundant, causes a lot of typing, and you can always use aliases when you need to cover the case of a column name having an unclear origin.

The other way, which I would recommend you do in your situation if you are committed to seeing this through, is to create views for each table that alias the table names. Then you join against those views, rather than the tables. That way, you are free to use * if you wish, free to use the original tables with original column names if you wish, and it also makes writing any subsequent queries easier because you have already done the renaming work in the views.

Finally, I am not clear why you need to know which table each of the columns came from. Does this matter? Ultimately what matters is the data they contain. Whether UserID came from the User table or the UserQuestion table doesn't really matter. It matters, of course, when you need to update it, but at that point you should already know your schema well enough to determine that.

Developing from this solution, this is how I would approach the problem:

First create a list of all the AS statements:

DECLARE @asStatements varchar(8000)

SELECT @asStatements = ISNULL(@asStatements + ', ','') + QUOTENAME(table_name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(column_name) + ' AS ' + '[' + table_name + '.' + column_name + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_A' OR TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_B'
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

Then use it in your query:

EXEC('SELECT ' + @asStatements + ' FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id)');

However, this might need modifications because something similar is only tested in SQL Server. But this code doesn't exactly work in SQL Server because USING is not supported.

Please comment if you can test/correct this code for e.g. MySQL.

DIfferent database products will give you different answers; but you're setting yourself up for hurt if you carry this very far. You're far better off choosing the columns you want, and giving them your own aliases so the identity of each column is crystal-clear, and you can tell them apart in the results.

Or you could use Red Gate SQL Refactor or SQL Prompt, which expands your SELECT * into column lists with a click of the Tab button

so in your case, if you type in SELECT * FROM A JOIN B ... Go to the end of *, Tab button, voila! you'll see SELECT A.column1, A.column2, .... , B.column1, B.column2 FROM A JOIN B

It's not free though

There is no SQL standard for this.

However With code generation (either on demand as the tables are created or altered or at runtime), you can do this quite easily:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_a](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_a] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_b](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_b] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

DECLARE @table1_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table1_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @join_condition AS varchar(255)
SET @table1_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_a'
SET @table1_prefix = 'a_'
SET @table2_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_b'
SET @table2_prefix = 'b_'
SET @join_condition = 'a.[id] = b.[id]'

DECLARE @CRLF AS varchar(2)
SET @CRLF = CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)

DECLARE @a_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @b_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @sql AS varchar(MAX)

SELECT @a_columnlist = COALESCE(@a_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'a.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table1_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table1_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SELECT @b_columnlist = COALESCE(@b_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'b.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table2_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table2_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SET @sql = 'SELECT ' + @a_columnlist + '
,' + @b_columnlist + '
FROM [' + @table1_name + '] AS a
INNER JOIN [' + @table2_name + '] AS b
ON (' + @join_condition + ')'

PRINT @sql
-- EXEC (@sql)

I implemented a solution based upon the answer suggesting using dummy or sentinel columns in node. You would use it by generating SQL like:

select 
    s.*
  , '' as _prefix__creator_
  , u.*
  , '' as _prefix__speaker_
  , p.*
from statements s 
  left join users u on s.creator_user_id = u.user_id
  left join persons p on s.speaker_person_id = p.person_id

And then post-processing the row you get back from your database driver like addPrefixes(row).

Implementation (based upon the fields/rows returned by my driver, but should be easy to change for other DB drivers):

const PREFIX_INDICATOR = '_prefix__'
const STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR = '_stop_prefix'

/** Adds a <prefix> to all properties that follow a property with the name: PREFIX_INDICATOR<prefix> */
function addPrefixes(fields, row) {
  let prefix = null
  for (const field of fields) {
    const key = field.name
    if (key.startsWith(PREFIX_INDICATOR)) {
      if (row[key] !== '') {
        throw new Error(`PREFIX_INDICATOR ${PREFIX_INDICATOR} must not appear with a value, but had value: ${row[key]}`)
      }
      prefix = key.substr(PREFIX_INDICATOR.length)
      delete row[key]
    } else if (key === STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR) {
      if (row[key] !== '') {
        throw new Error(`STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR ${STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR} must not appear with a value, but had value: ${row[key]}`)
      }
      prefix = null
      delete row[key]
    } else if (prefix) {
      const prefixedKey = prefix + key
      row[prefixedKey] = row[key]
      delete row[key]
    }
  }
  return row
}

Test:

const {
  addPrefixes,
  PREFIX_INDICATOR,
  STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR,
} = require('./BaseDao')

describe('addPrefixes', () => {
  test('adds prefixes', () => {
    const fields = [
      {name: 'id'},
      {name: PREFIX_INDICATOR + 'my_prefix_'},
      {name: 'foo'},
      {name: STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR},
      {name: 'baz'},
    ]
    const row = {
      id: 1,
      [PREFIX_INDICATOR + 'my_prefix_']: '',
      foo: 'bar',
      [STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR]: '',
      baz: 'spaz'
    }
    const expected = {
      id: 1,
      my_prefix_foo: 'bar',
      baz: 'spaz',
    }
    expect(addPrefixes(fields, row)).toEqual(expected)
  })
})

select * usually makes for bad code, as new columns tend to get added or order of columns change in tables quite frequently which usually breaks select * in a very subtle ways. So listing out columns is the right solution.

As to how to do your query, not sure about mysql but in sqlserver you could select column names from syscolumns and dynamically build the select clause.

DIfferent database products will give you different answers; but you're setting yourself up for hurt if you carry this very far. You're far better off choosing the columns you want, and giving them your own aliases so the identity of each column is crystal-clear, and you can tell them apart in the results.

The only database I know that does this is SQLite, depending on the settings you configure with PRAGMA full_column_names and PRAGMA short_column_names. See http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html

Otherwise all I can recommend is to fetch columns in a result set by ordinal position rather than by column name, if it's too much trouble for you to type the names of the columns in your query.

This is a good example of why it's bad practice to use SELECT * -- because eventually you'll have a need to type out all the column names anyway.

I understand the need to support columns that may change name or position, but using wildcards makes that harder, not easier.

I solved a similar problem of mine by renaming the fields in the tables involved. Yes, I had the privilege of doing this and understand that everybody may not have it. I added prefix to each field within a table representing the table name. Thus the SQL posted by OP would remain unchanged -

SELECT a.*, b.* FROM TABLE_A a JOIN TABLE_B b USING (some_id);

and still give the expected results - ease of identifying which table the output fields belongs to.

What I do is use Excel to concatenate the procedure. For instance, first I select * and get all of the columns, paste them in Excel. Then write out the code I need to surround the column. Say i needed to ad prev to a bunch of columns. I'd have my fields in the a column and "as prev_" in column B and my fields again in column c. In column d i'd have a column.

Then use concatanate in column e and merge them together, making sure to include spaces. Then cut and paste this into your sql code. I've also used this method to make case statements for the same field and other longer codes i need to do for each field in a multihundred field table.

There is a direct answer to your question for those who use the MySQL C-API.

Given the SQL:

  SELECT a.*, b.*, c.* FROM table_a a JOIN table_b b USING (x) JOIN table_c c USING (y)

The results from 'mysql_stmt_result_metadata()' gives the definition of your fields from your prepared SQL query into the structure MYSQL_FIELD[]. Each field contains the following data:

  char *name;                 /* Name of column (may be the alias) */
  char *org_name;             /* Original column name, if an alias */
  char *table;                /* Table of column if column was a field */
  char *org_table;            /* Org table name, if table was an alias */
  char *db;                   /* Database for table */
  char *catalog;              /* Catalog for table */
  char *def;                  /* Default value (set by mysql_list_fields) */
  unsigned long length;       /* Width of column (create length) */
  unsigned long max_length;   /* Max width for selected set */
  unsigned int name_length;
  unsigned int org_name_length;
  unsigned int table_length;
  unsigned int org_table_length;
  unsigned int db_length;
  unsigned int catalog_length;
  unsigned int def_length;
  unsigned int flags;         /* Div flags */
  unsigned int decimals;      /* Number of decimals in field */
  unsigned int charsetnr;     /* Character set */
  enum enum_field_types type; /* Type of field. See mysql_com.h for types */

Take notice the fields: catalog,table,org_name

You now know which fields in your SQL belongs to which schema (aka catalog) and table. This is enough to generically identify each field from a multi-table sql query, without having to alias anything.

An actual product SqlYOG is show to use this exact data in such a manor that they are able to independently update each table of a multi-table join, when the PK fields are present.

What I do is use Excel to concatenate the procedure. For instance, first I select * and get all of the columns, paste them in Excel. Then write out the code I need to surround the column. Say i needed to ad prev to a bunch of columns. I'd have my fields in the a column and "as prev_" in column B and my fields again in column c. In column d i'd have a column.

Then use concatanate in column e and merge them together, making sure to include spaces. Then cut and paste this into your sql code. I've also used this method to make case statements for the same field and other longer codes i need to do for each field in a multihundred field table.

I implemented a solution based upon the answer suggesting using dummy or sentinel columns in node. You would use it by generating SQL like:

select 
    s.*
  , '' as _prefix__creator_
  , u.*
  , '' as _prefix__speaker_
  , p.*
from statements s 
  left join users u on s.creator_user_id = u.user_id
  left join persons p on s.speaker_person_id = p.person_id

And then post-processing the row you get back from your database driver like addPrefixes(row).

Implementation (based upon the fields/rows returned by my driver, but should be easy to change for other DB drivers):

const PREFIX_INDICATOR = '_prefix__'
const STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR = '_stop_prefix'

/** Adds a <prefix> to all properties that follow a property with the name: PREFIX_INDICATOR<prefix> */
function addPrefixes(fields, row) {
  let prefix = null
  for (const field of fields) {
    const key = field.name
    if (key.startsWith(PREFIX_INDICATOR)) {
      if (row[key] !== '') {
        throw new Error(`PREFIX_INDICATOR ${PREFIX_INDICATOR} must not appear with a value, but had value: ${row[key]}`)
      }
      prefix = key.substr(PREFIX_INDICATOR.length)
      delete row[key]
    } else if (key === STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR) {
      if (row[key] !== '') {
        throw new Error(`STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR ${STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR} must not appear with a value, but had value: ${row[key]}`)
      }
      prefix = null
      delete row[key]
    } else if (prefix) {
      const prefixedKey = prefix + key
      row[prefixedKey] = row[key]
      delete row[key]
    }
  }
  return row
}

Test:

const {
  addPrefixes,
  PREFIX_INDICATOR,
  STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR,
} = require('./BaseDao')

describe('addPrefixes', () => {
  test('adds prefixes', () => {
    const fields = [
      {name: 'id'},
      {name: PREFIX_INDICATOR + 'my_prefix_'},
      {name: 'foo'},
      {name: STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR},
      {name: 'baz'},
    ]
    const row = {
      id: 1,
      [PREFIX_INDICATOR + 'my_prefix_']: '',
      foo: 'bar',
      [STOP_PREFIX_INDICATOR]: '',
      baz: 'spaz'
    }
    const expected = {
      id: 1,
      my_prefix_foo: 'bar',
      baz: 'spaz',
    }
    expect(addPrefixes(fields, row)).toEqual(expected)
  })
})

I am in kind of the same boat as OP - I have dozens of fields from 3 different tables that I'm joining, some of which have the same name(ie. id, name, etc). I don't want to list each field, so my solution was to alias those fields that shared a name and use select * for those that have a unique name.

For example :

table a : id, name, field1, field2 ...

table b : id, name, field3, field4 ...

select a.id as aID, a.name as aName, a. * , b.id as bID, b.name as bName, b. * .....

When accessing the results I us the aliased names for these fields and ignore the "original" names.

Maybe not the best solution but it works for me....i'm use mysql

Cant do this without aliasing , simply because, how are you going to reference a field in the where clause, if that field exists in the 2 or 3 tables you are joining? It will be unclear for mysql which one you are trying to reference.

There is a direct answer to your question for those who use the MySQL C-API.

Given the SQL:

  SELECT a.*, b.*, c.* FROM table_a a JOIN table_b b USING (x) JOIN table_c c USING (y)

The results from 'mysql_stmt_result_metadata()' gives the definition of your fields from your prepared SQL query into the structure MYSQL_FIELD[]. Each field contains the following data:

  char *name;                 /* Name of column (may be the alias) */
  char *org_name;             /* Original column name, if an alias */
  char *table;                /* Table of column if column was a field */
  char *org_table;            /* Org table name, if table was an alias */
  char *db;                   /* Database for table */
  char *catalog;              /* Catalog for table */
  char *def;                  /* Default value (set by mysql_list_fields) */
  unsigned long length;       /* Width of column (create length) */
  unsigned long max_length;   /* Max width for selected set */
  unsigned int name_length;
  unsigned int org_name_length;
  unsigned int table_length;
  unsigned int org_table_length;
  unsigned int db_length;
  unsigned int catalog_length;
  unsigned int def_length;
  unsigned int flags;         /* Div flags */
  unsigned int decimals;      /* Number of decimals in field */
  unsigned int charsetnr;     /* Character set */
  enum enum_field_types type; /* Type of field. See mysql_com.h for types */

Take notice the fields: catalog,table,org_name

You now know which fields in your SQL belongs to which schema (aka catalog) and table. This is enough to generically identify each field from a multi-table sql query, without having to alias anything.

An actual product SqlYOG is show to use this exact data in such a manor that they are able to independently update each table of a multi-table join, when the PK fields are present.

In postgres, I use the json functions to instead return json objects.... then, after querying, I json_decode the fields with a _json suffix.

IE:

select row_to_json(tab1.*),tab1_json, row_to_json(tab2.*) tab2_json 
 from tab1
 join tab2 on tab2.t1id=tab1.id

then in PHP (or any other language), I loop through the returned columns and json_decode() them if they have the "_json" suffix (also removing the suffix. In the end, I get an object called "tab1" that includes all tab1 fields, and another called "tab2" that includes all tab2 fields.

I am in kind of the same boat as OP - I have dozens of fields from 3 different tables that I'm joining, some of which have the same name(ie. id, name, etc). I don't want to list each field, so my solution was to alias those fields that shared a name and use select * for those that have a unique name.

For example :

table a : id, name, field1, field2 ...

table b : id, name, field3, field4 ...

select a.id as aID, a.name as aName, a. * , b.id as bID, b.name as bName, b. * .....

When accessing the results I us the aliased names for these fields and ignore the "original" names.

Maybe not the best solution but it works for me....i'm use mysql

There is no SQL standard for this.

However With code generation (either on demand as the tables are created or altered or at runtime), you can do this quite easily:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_a](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_a] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_b](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_b] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

DECLARE @table1_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table1_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @join_condition AS varchar(255)
SET @table1_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_a'
SET @table1_prefix = 'a_'
SET @table2_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_b'
SET @table2_prefix = 'b_'
SET @join_condition = 'a.[id] = b.[id]'

DECLARE @CRLF AS varchar(2)
SET @CRLF = CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)

DECLARE @a_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @b_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @sql AS varchar(MAX)

SELECT @a_columnlist = COALESCE(@a_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'a.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table1_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table1_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SELECT @b_columnlist = COALESCE(@b_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'b.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table2_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table2_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SET @sql = 'SELECT ' + @a_columnlist + '
,' + @b_columnlist + '
FROM [' + @table1_name + '] AS a
INNER JOIN [' + @table2_name + '] AS b
ON (' + @join_condition + ')'

PRINT @sql
-- EXEC (@sql)

I totally understand your problem about duplicated field names.

I needed that too until I coded my own function to solve it. If you are using PHP you can use it, or code yours in the language you are using for if you have this following facilities.

The trick here is that mysql_field_table() returns the table name and mysql_field_name() the field for each row in the result if it's got with mysql_num_fields() so you can mix them in a new array.

This prefixes all columns ;)

Regards,

function mysql_rows_with_columns($query) {
    $result = mysql_query($query);
    if (!$result) return false; // mysql_error() could be used outside
    $fields = mysql_num_fields($result);
    $rows = array();
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) { 
        $newRow = array();
        for ($i=0; $i<$fields; $i++) {
            $table = mysql_field_table($result, $i);
            $name = mysql_field_name($result, $i);
            $newRow[$table . "." . $name] = $row[$i];
        }
        $rows[] = $newRow;
    }
    mysql_free_result($result);
    return $rows;
}

If concerned about schema changes this might work for you: 1. Run a 'DESCRIBE table' query on all tables involved. 2. Use the returned field names to dynamically construct a string of column names prefixed with your chosen alias.

I am in kind of the same boat as OP - I have dozens of fields from 3 different tables that I'm joining, some of which have the same name(ie. id, name, etc). I don't want to list each field, so my solution was to alias those fields that shared a name and use select * for those that have a unique name.

For example :

table a : id, name, field1, field2 ...

table b : id, name, field3, field4 ...

select a.id as aID, a.name as aName, a. * , b.id as bID, b.name as bName, b. * .....

When accessing the results I us the aliased names for these fields and ignore the "original" names.

Maybe not the best solution but it works for me....i'm use mysql

There is no SQL standard for this.

However With code generation (either on demand as the tables are created or altered or at runtime), you can do this quite easily:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_a](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_a] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[stackoverflow_329931_b](
    [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col2] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col3] [nchar](10) NULL,
    [col4] [nchar](10) NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_stackoverflow_329931_b] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

DECLARE @table1_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table1_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_name AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @table2_prefix AS varchar(255)
DECLARE @join_condition AS varchar(255)
SET @table1_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_a'
SET @table1_prefix = 'a_'
SET @table2_name = 'stackoverflow_329931_b'
SET @table2_prefix = 'b_'
SET @join_condition = 'a.[id] = b.[id]'

DECLARE @CRLF AS varchar(2)
SET @CRLF = CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)

DECLARE @a_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @b_columnlist AS varchar(MAX)
DECLARE @sql AS varchar(MAX)

SELECT @a_columnlist = COALESCE(@a_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'a.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table1_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table1_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SELECT @b_columnlist = COALESCE(@b_columnlist + @CRLF + ',', '') + 'b.[' + COLUMN_NAME + '] AS [' + @table2_prefix + COLUMN_NAME + ']'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = @table2_name
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

SET @sql = 'SELECT ' + @a_columnlist + '
,' + @b_columnlist + '
FROM [' + @table1_name + '] AS a
INNER JOIN [' + @table2_name + '] AS b
ON (' + @join_condition + ')'

PRINT @sql
-- EXEC (@sql)

This question is very useful in practice. It's only necessary to list every explicit columns in software programming, where you pay particular careful to deal with all conditions.

Imagine when debugging, or, try to use DBMS as daily office tool, instead of something alterable implementation of specific programmer's abstract underlying infrastructure, we need to code a lot of SQLs. The scenario can be found everywhere, like database conversion, migration, administration, etc. Most of these SQLs will be executed only once and never be used again, give the every column names is just waste of time. And don't forget the invention of SQL isn't only for the programmers use.

Usually I will create a utility view with column names prefixed, here is the function in pl/pgsql, it's not easy but you can convert it to other procedure languages.

-- Create alias-view for specific table.

create or replace function mkaview(schema varchar, tab varchar, prefix varchar)
    returns table(orig varchar, alias varchar) as $$
declare
    qtab varchar;
    qview varchar;
    qcol varchar;
    qacol varchar;
    v record;
    sql varchar;
    len int;
begin
    qtab := '"' || schema || '"."' || tab || '"';
    qview := '"' || schema || '"."av' || prefix || tab || '"';
    sql := 'create view ' || qview || ' as select';

    for v in select * from information_schema.columns
            where table_schema = schema and table_name = tab
    loop
        qcol := '"' || v.column_name || '"';
        qacol := '"' || prefix || v.column_name || '"';

        sql := sql || ' ' || qcol || ' as ' || qacol;
        sql := sql || ', ';

        return query select qcol::varchar, qacol::varchar;
    end loop;

    len := length(sql);
    sql := left(sql, len - 2); -- trim the trailing ', '.
    sql := sql || ' from ' || qtab;

    raise info 'Execute SQL: %', sql;
    execute sql;
end
$$ language plpgsql;

Examples:

-- This will create a view "avp_person" with "p_" prefix to all column names.
select * from mkaview('public', 'person', 'p_');

select * from avp_person;

select * usually makes for bad code, as new columns tend to get added or order of columns change in tables quite frequently which usually breaks select * in a very subtle ways. So listing out columns is the right solution.

As to how to do your query, not sure about mysql but in sqlserver you could select column names from syscolumns and dynamically build the select clause.

I totally understand why this is necessary - at least for me it's handy during rapid prototyping when there are a lot of tables necessary to be joined, including many inner joins. As soon as a column name is the same in a second "joinedtable.*" field wild card, the main table's field values are overriden with the joinedtable values. Error prone, frustrating and a violation of DRY when having to manually specify the table fields with aliases over and over...

Here is a PHP (Wordpress) function to achieve this through code generation together with an example of how to use it. In the example, it is used to rapidly generate a custom query that will provide the fields of a related wordpress post that was referenced through a advanced custom fields field.

function prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($table, $alias)
{
    global $wpdb;
    $columns = $wpdb->get_results("SHOW COLUMNS FROM $table", ARRAY_A);

    $field_names = array();
    foreach ($columns as $column)
    {
        $field_names[] = $column["Field"];
    }
    $prefixed = array();
    foreach ($field_names as $field_name)
    {
        $prefixed[] = "`{$alias}`.`{$field_name}` AS `{$alias}.{$field_name}`";
    }

    return implode(", ", $prefixed);
}

function test_prefixed_table_fields_wildcard()
{
    global $wpdb;

    $query = "
    SELECT
        " . prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($wpdb->posts, 'campaigns') . ",
        " . prefixed_table_fields_wildcard($wpdb->posts, 'venues') . "
        FROM $wpdb->posts AS campaigns
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->postmeta meta1 ON (meta1.meta_key = 'venue' AND campaigns.ID = meta1.post_id)
    LEFT JOIN $wpdb->posts venues ON (venues.post_status = 'publish' AND venues.post_type = 'venue' AND venues.ID = meta1.meta_value)
    WHERE 1
    AND campaigns.post_status = 'publish'
    AND campaigns.post_type = 'campaign'
    LIMIT 1
    ";

    echo "<pre>$query</pre>";

    $posts = $wpdb->get_results($query, OBJECT);

    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($posts);
    echo "</pre>";
}

The output:

SELECT
    `campaigns`.`ID` AS `campaigns.ID`, `campaigns`.`post_author` AS `campaigns.post_author`, `campaigns`.`post_date` AS `campaigns.post_date`, `campaigns`.`post_date_gmt` AS `campaigns.post_date_gmt`, `campaigns`.`post_content` AS `campaigns.post_content`, `campaigns`.`post_title` AS `campaigns.post_title`, `campaigns`.`post_excerpt` AS `campaigns.post_excerpt`, `campaigns`.`post_status` AS `campaigns.post_status`, `campaigns`.`comment_status` AS `campaigns.comment_status`, `campaigns`.`ping_status` AS `campaigns.ping_status`, `campaigns`.`post_password` AS `campaigns.post_password`, `campaigns`.`post_name` AS `campaigns.post_name`, `campaigns`.`to_ping` AS `campaigns.to_ping`, `campaigns`.`pinged` AS `campaigns.pinged`, `campaigns`.`post_modified` AS `campaigns.post_modified`, `campaigns`.`post_modified_gmt` AS `campaigns.post_modified_gmt`, `campaigns`.`post_content_filtered` AS `campaigns.post_content_filtered`, `campaigns`.`post_parent` AS `campaigns.post_parent`, `campaigns`.`guid` AS `campaigns.guid`, `campaigns`.`menu_order` AS `campaigns.menu_order`, `campaigns`.`post_type` AS `campaigns.post_type`, `campaigns`.`post_mime_type` AS `campaigns.post_mime_type`, `campaigns`.`comment_count` AS `campaigns.comment_count`,
    `venues`.`ID` AS `venues.ID`, `venues`.`post_author` AS `venues.post_author`, `venues`.`post_date` AS `venues.post_date`, `venues`.`post_date_gmt` AS `venues.post_date_gmt`, `venues`.`post_content` AS `venues.post_content`, `venues`.`post_title` AS `venues.post_title`, `venues`.`post_excerpt` AS `venues.post_excerpt`, `venues`.`post_status` AS `venues.post_status`, `venues`.`comment_status` AS `venues.comment_status`, `venues`.`ping_status` AS `venues.ping_status`, `venues`.`post_password` AS `venues.post_password`, `venues`.`post_name` AS `venues.post_name`, `venues`.`to_ping` AS `venues.to_ping`, `venues`.`pinged` AS `venues.pinged`, `venues`.`post_modified` AS `venues.post_modified`, `venues`.`post_modified_gmt` AS `venues.post_modified_gmt`, `venues`.`post_content_filtered` AS `venues.post_content_filtered`, `venues`.`post_parent` AS `venues.post_parent`, `venues`.`guid` AS `venues.guid`, `venues`.`menu_order` AS `venues.menu_order`, `venues`.`post_type` AS `venues.post_type`, `venues`.`post_mime_type` AS `venues.post_mime_type`, `venues`.`comment_count` AS `venues.comment_count`
    FROM wp_posts AS campaigns
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta meta1 ON (meta1.meta_key = 'venue' AND campaigns.ID = meta1.post_id)
LEFT JOIN wp_posts venues ON (venues.post_status = 'publish' AND venues.post_type = 'venue' AND venues.ID = meta1.meta_value)
WHERE 1
AND campaigns.post_status = 'publish'
AND campaigns.post_type = 'campaign'
LIMIT 1

Array
(
    [0] => stdClass Object
        (
            [campaigns.ID] => 33
            [campaigns.post_author] => 2
            [campaigns.post_date] => 2012-01-16 19:19:10
            [campaigns.post_date_gmt] => 2012-01-16 19:19:10
            [campaigns.post_content] => Lorem ipsum
            [campaigns.post_title] => Lorem ipsum
            [campaigns.post_excerpt] => 
            [campaigns.post_status] => publish
            [campaigns.comment_status] => closed
            [campaigns.ping_status] => closed
            [campaigns.post_password] => 
            [campaigns.post_name] => lorem-ipsum
            [campaigns.to_ping] => 
            [campaigns.pinged] => 
            [campaigns.post_modified] => 2012-01-16 21:01:55
            [campaigns.post_modified_gmt] => 2012-01-16 21:01:55
            [campaigns.post_content_filtered] => 
            [campaigns.post_parent] => 0
            [campaigns.guid] => http://example.com/?p=33
            [campaigns.menu_order] => 0
            [campaigns.post_type] => campaign
            [campaigns.post_mime_type] => 
            [campaigns.comment_count] => 0
            [venues.ID] => 84
            [venues.post_author] => 2
            [venues.post_date] => 2012-01-16 20:12:05
            [venues.post_date_gmt] => 2012-01-16 20:12:05
            [venues.post_content] => Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
            [venues.post_title] => Lorem ipsum venue
            [venues.post_excerpt] => 
            [venues.post_status] => publish
            [venues.comment_status] => closed
            [venues.ping_status] => closed
            [venues.post_password] => 
            [venues.post_name] => lorem-ipsum-venue
            [venues.to_ping] => 
            [venues.pinged] => 
            [venues.post_modified] => 2012-01-16 20:53:37
            [venues.post_modified_gmt] => 2012-01-16 20:53:37
            [venues.post_content_filtered] => 
            [venues.post_parent] => 0
            [venues.guid] => http://example.com/?p=84
            [venues.menu_order] => 0
            [venues.post_type] => venue
            [venues.post_mime_type] => 
            [venues.comment_count] => 0
        )
)

The only database I know that does this is SQLite, depending on the settings you configure with PRAGMA full_column_names and PRAGMA short_column_names. See http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html

Otherwise all I can recommend is to fetch columns in a result set by ordinal position rather than by column name, if it's too much trouble for you to type the names of the columns in your query.

This is a good example of why it's bad practice to use SELECT * -- because eventually you'll have a need to type out all the column names anyway.

I understand the need to support columns that may change name or position, but using wildcards makes that harder, not easier.

There are two ways I can think of to make this happen in a reusable way. One is to rename all of your columns with a prefix for the table they have come from. I have seen this many times, but I really don't like it. I find that it's redundant, causes a lot of typing, and you can always use aliases when you need to cover the case of a column name having an unclear origin.

The other way, which I would recommend you do in your situation if you are committed to seeing this through, is to create views for each table that alias the table names. Then you join against those views, rather than the tables. That way, you are free to use * if you wish, free to use the original tables with original column names if you wish, and it also makes writing any subsequent queries easier because you have already done the renaming work in the views.

Finally, I am not clear why you need to know which table each of the columns came from. Does this matter? Ultimately what matters is the data they contain. Whether UserID came from the User table or the UserQuestion table doesn't really matter. It matters, of course, when you need to update it, but at that point you should already know your schema well enough to determine that.

If concerned about schema changes this might work for you: 1. Run a 'DESCRIBE table' query on all tables involved. 2. Use the returned field names to dynamically construct a string of column names prefixed with your chosen alias.

Recently ran into this issue in NodeJS and Postgres.

ES6 approach

There aren't any RDBMS features I know of that provide this functionality, so I created an object containing all my fields, e.g.:

const schema = { columns: ['id','another_column','yet_another_column'] }

Defined a reducer to concatenate the strings together with a table name:

const prefix = (table, columns) => columns.reduce((previous, column) => {
  previous.push(table + '.' + column + ' AS ' + table + '_' + column);
  return previous;
}, []);

This returns an array of strings. Call it for each table and combine the results:

const columns_joined = [...prefix('tab1',schema.columns), ...prefix('tab2',schema.columns)];

Output the final SQL statement:

console.log('SELECT ' + columns_joined.join(',') + ' FROM tab1, tab2 WHERE tab1.id = tab2.id');