At 02:22 PM 25/02/2003 +0000, you wrote:

> > select * is bad practice. Period.
>
>Is it? It just seemed one less thing to change if I update the
>table. I can imagine it's lazy sql though.
>
> > select table1.*, cast('now' as timestamp) as server_time
> > from table1
>
>Yay! Is that preferable to:
>
>select table1.*, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as server_time

In some conditions (Dialect 3, DSQL) they are the same. But
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP isn't available in Dialect 1; and in stored procedures
and triggers, cast('NOW'...) gives exact time, whereas CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
gives the same time throughout execution of the module (i.e. time at the
beginning).

Helen