Question

Is it possible to strip away columns from the response I get in a query where I join 3 tables and need more or less all columns for the query itself so that some columns aren’t visible in the response?

This is the query I have:

    $sth = mysql_query("
        SELECT
            tbl_subApp2Tag.*,
            tbl_subApp.*,
            tbl_tag.*
            ISNULL(tbl_userDeviceNOTTag.userDevice_id) AS selected

        FROM tbl_subApp2Tag

        LEFT JOIN tbl_subApp
            ON tbl_subApp.id = tbl_subApp2Tag.subApp_id
            AND tbl_subApp.subApp_id = '".$sub."'

        LEFT JOIN tbl_tag
            ON tbl_tag.id = tbl_subApp2Tag.tag_id

        LEFT JOIN tbl_userDeviceNOTTag
            ON tbl_userDeviceNOTTag.tag_id = tbl_tag.id
            AND tbl_userDeviceNOTTag.userDevice_id = '".$user."'

        WHERE tbl_subApp2Tag.subApp_id = tbl_subApp.id

        ORDER BY tbl_tag.name ASC ");
    if(!$sth) echo "Error in query: ".mysql_error();
    while($r = mysql_fetch_assoc($sth)) {
        $rows[] = $r;
    }

Answer 1

You do not need to include columns in the result table, just because they are referenced elsewhere in the query. Just select the columns that you need.