SQL How to return only a number of columns, say the first 10 without specifying them in the SQL query

I've got an oracle database and a table that has a lot of columns and ro开发者_Go百科ws.. I want to return onl the first 10 columns to my JTables but I don't want to name each column in my query.

Is it possible?

edit: isnt there a column index? or something like rownum but for columns?

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Nope, but even if it was, you would want to write them out, as the order may change.

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I don't want to name each column in my query.

You can programatically fetch column name and can generate query on fly and then can obtain your goal

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SQL deals with sets and properties of sets by definition have no order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relational_model_concepts.png see Attribute (column) unordered. Literally what you are asking for has no meaning.

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There are ways of doing what you want, but you shouldn't because that ties your implementation to a physical table layout. This is a bad thing.

See How do I exclude columns... and Select vs select column..

If, after reading those questions you still want to do this, you can have a look at USER_TAB_COLUMNS. The column COLUMN_ID will contain the sequence number of the column as created. You could then select COLUMN_NAME where COLUMN_ID <= 10, and find a way of constructing a query with those columns.