Perhaps a possible new feature to a future PostgreSQL release
Hello
Let me assume that there is a table T with columns a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h.
If one wants to select data from all the columns except d and e, then one has to write
SELECT a, b, c, f, g, h
FROM T;
instead of writing
SELECT ALL BUT (d, e)
FROM T;
or something similar (perhaps by using keywords EXCEPT or EXCLUDE).
The more a table has columns, the more one has to write the column names.
There are systems that support this kind of shorthand syntax in SQL:
Databricks: https://docs.databricks.com/en/sql/language-manual/sql-ref-syntax-qry-select.html#syntax
DuckDB: https://duckdb.org/docs/sql/query_syntax/select
Snowflake:https://stephenallwright.com/select-columns-except-snowflake/
I think that such syntax would be useful and if more and more DBMS-s start to offer it, then perhaps one day it will be in the SQL standard as well.
What do you think, is it something that could be added to PostgreSQL?
People are interested of this feature. The following links are just some examples:
http://www.postgresonline.com/journal/archives/41-How-to-SELECT-ALL-EXCEPT-some-columns-in-a-table.html
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/729197/exclude-a-column-using-select-except-columna-from-tablea
https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/1957/sql-select-all-columns-except-some
https://www.reddit.com/r/SQL/comments/15x97kw/sql_is_there_a_way_to_just_exclude_1_column_in/
Best regards
Erki Eessaar
On Mon, 2023-11-20 at 09:52 +0000, Erki Eessaar wrote:
Let me assume that there is a table T with columns a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and h.
If one wants to select data from all the columns except d and e, then one has to write
SELECT a, b, c, f, g, h
FROM T;instead of writing
SELECT ALL BUT (d, e)
FROM T;or something similar (perhaps by using keywords EXCEPT or EXCLUDE).
This has been discussed before (repeatedly); see for example
/messages/by-id/CANcm6wbR3EG7t-G=Txy64Yt8nR6YbpzFRuTewJQ+kCq=rZ8M2A@mail.gmail.com
All previous attempts went nowhere.
I think that such syntax would be useful and if more and more DBMS-s start to
offer it, then perhaps one day it will be in the SQL standard as well.
One of the reasons *against* the feature is that the SQL standard committee
might one day come up with a feature like that using a syntax that conflicts
with whatever we introduced on our own.
Yours,
Laurenz Albe