Question

We’ve got a view that’s defined like this

CREATE VIEW aView as 
SELECT * from aTable Where <bunch of conditions>;

The “value” of the view is in the where-condition, so it is okay to use a Select * in this case.

When a new column is added to the underlying table, we have to redefine the view with a

CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW aView as 
SELECT * from aTable Where <bunch of conditions>;

as the Select * seems to get “translated” into all the columns present at the time the view is (re-)defined.

My question: How can we avoid this extra step?
(If the answer is dependent on the RDBMS, we’re using Oracle.)

Answer 1

This extra step is mandatory in Oracle: you will have to recompile your view manually.

As you have noticed, the “*” is lost once you create a view:

SQL> create table t (id number);

Table created

SQL> create view v as select * from t;

View created

SQL> select text from user_views where view_name = 'V';

TEXT
-------------------------------------------------------
select "ID" from t