EXCLUDE from SELECT query

[ipruthi]

Hi,

I have a database with: FirstName, LastName, Username, EmailAddress, and, ultimately, Password. I'm writing a user authentication system where I need to get all these fields from the database EXCEPT for the 'Password' field because at this point the user should not know the password.

Is there a way of doing this in a simple SELECT MySQL query?

I know that I could:
>SELECT FirstName, LastName, Username, EmailAddress FROM 'MyUserTable' WHERE Username='$username'

but I'm wondering if I can do something like:
>SELECT * (EXCLUDE Password) FROM 'MyUserTable' WHERE Username='$username'

:p

Thank you,
Ilir.

[barand]

I've never come across such an EXCEPT clause so I guess you're stuck with specifying the fields explicitly.

IMHO this is good practice as it protects your code from changes in the db structure (as long as your fields aren't removed) and gives you control over the content and field order in your result set.

Not a good idea to hold unencrypted passwords either.