Ann, thanks for you reply.

> Don't do that! If someone adds a column to any table, your
> view will break. I know it's a lot of typing - use cut and paste -
> but name your fields explicitly. Select * is an ugly hack left
> over from interactive SQL and has no place in data definitions
> or programs.
>

This is true but because the tables and view are only changed by our program, this is not a problem. Whenever we change the base tables, we have to change the view, too. In this respect, it would be nice if the view could be created without specifying columns at all. But because Firebird still requires specifying a column list for a view, repeating them in the SELECT statement is not too much work.