Select all columns except one in MySQL?

Question

I\'m trying to use a select statement to get all of the columns from a certain MySQL table except one. Is there a simple way to do this?

EDIT: There are 53 columns i

Answer 1

If the column that you didn't want to select had a massive amount of data in it, and you didn't want to include it due to speed issues and you select the other columns often, I would suggest that you create a new table with the one field that you don't usually select with a key to the original table and remove the field from the original table. Join the tables when that extra field is actually required.

Answer 2

Actually there is a way, you need to have permissions of course for doing this ...

SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT ', (SELECT REPLACE(GROUP_CONCAT(COLUMN_NAME), '<columns_to_omit>,', '') FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = '<table>' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = '<database>'), ' FROM <table>');

PREPARE stmt1 FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt1;

Replacing <table>, <database> and <columns_to_omit>

Answer 3

While trying the solutions by @Mahomedalid and @Junaid I found a problem. So thought of sharing it. If the column name is having spaces or hyphens like check-in then the query will fail. The simple workaround is to use backtick around column names. The modified query is below

SET @SQL = CONCAT('SELECT ', (SELECT GROUP_CONCAT(CONCAT("`", COLUMN_NAME, "`")) FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'users' AND COLUMN_NAME NOT IN ('id')), ' FROM users');
PREPARE stmt1 FROM @SQL;
EXECUTE stmt1;

Answer 4

Would a View work better in this case?

CREATE VIEW vwTable
as  
SELECT  
    col1  
    , col2  
    , col3  
    , col..  
    , col53  
FROM table

Answer 5

If it's always the same one column, then you can create a view that doesn't have it in it.

Otherwise, no I don't think so.

Answer 6

In mysql definitions (manual) there is no such thing. But if you have a really big number of columns col1, ..., col100, the following can be useful:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS temp_tb;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE ENGINE=MEMORY temp_tb SELECT * FROM orig_tb;
ALTER TABLE temp_tb DROP col_x;
   #// ALTER TABLE temp_tb DROP col_a, ... , DROP col_z; #// for a few columns to drop
SELECT * FROM temp_tb;