On: Selecting All Columns Except One in PostgreSQL

[teej]

    CREATE TABLE safe_users AS
    SELECT *
           EXCEPT users.pii
      FROM users
    ;

Lots and lots of uses for this feature. I often wish I had it in Redshift.

[jlgaddis → teej]

I suppose it could be useful for keeping your "breach notification team" busy, after somebody (for whatever reason) adds a "users.hiv_positive" (boolean) column or some such and that column ends up being included somewhere you didn't intend it to be.

"Root cause analysis: The {database administrators|programmers} were too lazy to explicitly define the column names they wanted, resulting in the unintended disclosure of HIV positive status of $bignum individuals."