How to select columns from a table which have non null values?

Question

I have a table containing hundreds of columns many of which are null, and I would like have my select statement so that only those columns containing a value are returned. I

Answer 1

What you're asking to do is establish a dependency on each row in the whole result. This is in fact not ever what you want. Just think of the ramifications if in one row every column had a value of '0' -- suddenly the schema of your result set grows to include all of those previously "empty" columns. You're effectively growing the badness of '*' exponentially, now your result set is not dependent on just the table's meta-data -- but your whole result set is dependent on the plain data.

What you want to do is just select the fields that have what you want, and not deviate from this simple plan.