The asterisk symbol (*)

The following query specifies all the columns in the manufact table in a projection list. An explicit projection list is a list of the column names or expressions that you want to project from a table.

Figure 1. Query

SELECT manu_code, manu_name, lead_time FROM manufact;

The following query uses the wildcard asterisk symbol (*) as shorthand in the projection list to represent the names of all the columns in the table. You can use the asterisk symbol (*) when you want all the columns in their defined order. An implicit select list uses the asterisk symbol.

Figure 2. Query

SELECT * FROM manufact;

Because the manufact table has only three columns, Figure 1 and Figure 2 are equivalent and display the same results; that is, a list of every column and row in the manufact table. The following figure shows the results.

Figure 3. Query result

manu_code manu_name       lead_time 

 SMT       Smith              3
 ANZ       Anza               5
 NRG       Norge              7
 HSK       Husky              5
 HRO       Hero               4
 SHM       Shimara           30
 KAR       Karsten           21
 NKL       Nikolus            8
 PRC       ProCycle           9