Re: Getting columns in DB order

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On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

> Sam> Do you carry that philosophy into your UI as well?  This CSV data will
> Sam> end up in Excel for analysis outside my app.  Do you really think
> Sam> column order doesn't matter there?
> 
> The order of the columns in the *database* shouldn't matter.  Yes, you
> should have some sort of out-of-band description about the particular
> columns your reports will have.  That's not the job of the database.
> The job of the database is to give you the data.  The job of your
> report is to format that in a manner necessary for the next step.

Yeah, I can dig it.  I was hoping to avoid putting the same
information (the list of fields in the "person" table) in two places.
It's already in person.sql and now it has to be in Person.pm too.  If
I remove a field from one I'll have to remember to update the other.
Suck.

> Sam> These names aren't arbitrary.  I can't just rename "city" to "10_city"
> Sam> and pretend no-one will notice!
> 
> "name them" as in "select address, city, state" instead of "select *".

Dude, I'm using Class::DBI.  Of course I'm not doing SELECT *.  Give
me a little credit, huh?

-sam