Re: distinguishing identical columns after joins

In times like these, I usually write a query using 
information_schema.columns to generate the column list:


SELECT  ordinal_position,        1 AS table_instance,        'a.' || column_name || ' AS ' || column_name || '_a,'
FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE   TABLE_NAME = 'your_table_here'
UNION ALL
SELECT  ordinal_position,        2 AS table_instance,        'b.' || column_name || ' AS ' || column_name || '_b,'
FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE   TABLE_NAME = 'your_table_here'
ORDER BY table_instance,        ordinal_position;


Or something along those lines, and copy-and-paste the results into the 
query. It's quicker than typing them all out once you hit a certain 
number of columns, and certainly less typo-prone.

It's not the shortcut you were thinking of but it works.


On 3/1/2011 5:13 PM, S G wrote:
> Rob, what you wrote certainly does work.  But suppose you had to do
> that for a join with 50 columns in each table, and you really needed
> to see all those columns show up in the final result set, and
> furthermore, you needed to be able to identify each one uniquely in
> the final result set.  Explicit renaming works, but it's tedious.
> Call me lazy.  I'm hoping a column-renaming shortcut exists that works
> with the "SELECT *" concept.