Selecting all columns (*)

The asterisk symbol provides a quick way to retrieve all columns without typing each name individually. When to Use * Choosing the Right Columns Now try selecting different columns from a product inventory table. Requesting only the columns relevant to your question means analysts reading your query can immediately understand what data you care about without scrolling through irrelevant output. The ability to select any combination of columns from a table is one of the core reasons SQL is so flexible for answering a wide variety of business questions from the same dataset.