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Asked: 2026-05-10T20:08:12+00:00

I’m using MS SQL Server 2005. Is there a difference, to the SQL engine,

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I’m using MS SQL Server 2005. Is there a difference, to the SQL engine, between

SELECT * FROM MyTable;

and

SELECT ColA, ColB, ColC FROM MyTable;

When ColA, ColB, and ColC represent every column in the table?

If they are the same, is there a reason why you should use the 2nd one anyway? I have a project that’s heavy on LINQ, and I’m not sure if the standard SELECT * it generates is a bad practice, or if I should always be a .Select() on it to specify which cols I want.

EDIT: Changed ‘When ColA, ColB, and ColC are all the columns to the table?’ to ‘When ColA, ColB, and ColC represent every column in the table?’ for clarity.

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  1. Generally, it’s better to be explicit, so Select col1, col2 from Table is better. The reason being that at some point, an extra column may be added to that table, and would cause unneeded data to be brought back from the query.

    This isn’t a hard and fast rule though.

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