Asterisk vs. Field Names

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J

JamesJ

When specifying all fields in a table in a select statement
does it make much difference whether one uses the asterisk
for all fields or is it more acceptable to specify each field name?

Thanks,
James
 
JamesJ said:
When specifying all fields in a table in a select statement
does it make much difference whether one uses the asterisk
for all fields or is it more acceptable to specify each field name?
Click to expand...

There might be a miniscule performance penalty for * because the query engine
must retrieve the names from the system tables. Otherwise * has the advantage
that if new fields are added to the base table later on the query will
automatically pick the new fields up. A query that explicitly named the fields
would have to be modified.

I believe most of the "bad press" that the use of * gets is when people use *
even when they DON'T need all of the fields just out of laziness. If I need all
of the fields then that is what I use.
 
Thanks

Rick Brandt said:
There might be a miniscule performance penalty for * because the query
engine must retrieve the names from the system tables. Otherwise * has
the advantage that if new fields are added to the base table later on the
query will automatically pick the new fields up. A query that explicitly
named the fields would have to be modified.

I believe most of the "bad press" that the use of * gets is when people
use * even when they DON'T need all of the fields just out of laziness.
If I need all of the fields then that is what I use.
Click to expand...
 
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