Re: full featured alter table?

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003 15:29:20 -0400, Andrew Sullivan
<andrew(at)libertyrms(dot)info> wrote:
>On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 07:33:19PM +0200, Sven K?hler wrote:
>>
>> "select *" should refelect the cosmetical order of the columns.
>
>Why? You asked for everything, and specified no order.

AFAICS it's a matter of standard conformance. SLQ92 says

in 4.8 Columns:

A column is described by a column descriptor. A column descriptor
includes:
[...]
- the ordinal position of the column within the table that con-
tains the column.

and in 7.9 <query specification>:

3) Case:

a) [deals with EXISTS]

b) Otherwise, the <select list> "*" is equivalent to a <value
expression> sequence in which each <value expression> is a
<column reference> that references a column of T and each
column of T is referenced exactly once. The columns are ref-
erenced in the ascending sequence of their ordinal position
within T.

4) The <select sublist> "<qualifier>.*" for some <qualifier> Q is
[similar to 3b]

Servus
Manfred