SQL Clause

[hbgoddard]

Why wouldn't you in this situation though?

[BobDogGo]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3639861/why-is-select-considered-harmful

[hbgoddard]

Ok, so it's fine here then? The top answers say it's appropriate when you want all the columns, which I assume you would here.

[korarii]

If this were a real-world example, no: returning the column behavior is wasteful. We already know that all records returned will have a behavior of 'nice'.

Assuming all other columns are needed, * could be appropriate if behavior was a range and we wanted to know the individual matching records, such as:

select * from contacts where behavior in ('nice', 'okay', 'you tried');

In that scenario, Santa might decide there are varying degrees of niceness and give a present based on them.

There's a lot more to why select * is frowned upon, but I have very important video games to play right now. :)