Table names in front of field names when using SELECT * - sql-server

Question

I was wondering if there is a possibility to show full column names when using SELECT * in combination with JOIN.
As an example I have this query (which selects data that gets imported from another application):
SELECT *
FROM Table1 t1
INNER JOIN Table2 t2 ON t1.SomeKey = t2.SomeKey
LEFT JOIN Table3 t3 ON t2.SomeOtherKey = t3.SomeOtherKey
This gives me results like this:
+---------+------+-------+------------+---------+--------------+-----------+------------+--------------+-------+---------------+------------+
| SomeKey | Name | Value | WhateverId | SomeKey | SomeOtherKey | ValueType | CategoryId | SomeOtherKey | Value | ActualValueId | SomeTypeId |
+---------+------+-------+------------+---------+--------------+-----------+------------+--------------+-------+---------------+------------+
| bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla | bla |
+---------+------+-------+------------+---------+--------------+-----------+------------+--------------+-------+---------------+------------+
What I'd like to have is the table name in front of each field. The results would be something like this:
+----------------+-------------+-------+------------------+
| Table1.SomeKey | Table1.Name | ..... | Table2.ValueType | .....
+----------------+-------------+-------+------------------+
| bla | bla | ..... | bla | .....
+----------------+-------------+-------+------------------+
I want to do this because the query is already given (without SELECT *) and I now have to find a column in one of the tables with values that match a given identity from an additional table. I know I could analyze each of the tables. However, I'd like to know if there is any simple statement I could add to get the table names in front of the field names.

Answer 1

Well, the answer to that question is NO . You can't alias the columns using the * .
If you want to work around with the columns, specify them your self and alias them as you'd like, in general I try to avoid the use of * to avoid ambiguously columns.
Think about that this way - 2 more minutes of work to avoid a possibilitiy of errors that will take you 100X of it.

Answer 2

You can easily build yourself the SELECT clause using AS for each column. Let's say you have the following tables:
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.Table01') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DROP TABLE Table01;
END;
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.Table02') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DROP TABLE Table02;
END;
CREATE TABLE Table01
(
[ID] INT IDENTITY(1,1)
,[Name] VARCHAR(12)
,[Age] TINYINT
);
CREATE TABLE Table02
(
[ID] INT IDENTITY(1,1)
,[Name] VARCHAR(12)
,[Age] TINYINT
);
and you query is:
SELECT *
FROM Table01
INNER JOIN Table02
ON Table01.[ID] = Table02.[ID];
Just execute the following statement:
SELECT ',' + [source_table] + '.' + [source_column] + ' AS [' + [source_table] + '.' + [source_column] + ']'
FROM sys.dm_exec_describe_first_result_set
(N'SELECT *
FROM Table01
INNER JOIN Table02
ON Table01.[ID] = Table02.[ID]', null,1) ;
You will get this:
Just copy and paste the result to your query (and remove the first comma):
SELECT Table01.ID AS [Table01.ID]
,Table01.Name AS [Table01.Name]
,Table01.Age AS [Table01.Age]
,Table02.ID AS [Table02.ID]
,Table02.Name AS [Table02.Name]
,Table02.Age AS [Table02.Age]
FROM Table01
INNER JOIN Table02
ON Table01.[ID] = Table02.[ID];
and you will get this:
Of course you can play with the output of the function and build the SELECT columns in a way you like (excluding columns, formatting it, etc).