[heyda]

"A traditional SQL SELECT query requires that requested columns be explicitly specified, with one notable exception: the * wildcard. SELECT * allows SQL to return all relevant columns. This adds tremendous flexibility, especially when building queries on top of one another. However, we are often interested in almost all columns. In DuckDB, simply specify which columns to EXCLUDE:"

It appears how this works is that is selects all columns and then EXCLUDES only the column's specified, the reason this doesn't exist in normal SQL is because it is a terrible idea. This is something that will break at many companies with large technical debt if it is ever used.

[sagarm]

It can definitely be misused, but SELECT * is pretty handy for ad-hoc queries and to succinctly get all (or almost all) of the columns for a subquery or CTE.