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

Question

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         


        

Answer 1

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)
  })
})

Answer 2

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');

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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