One way of both specifying the columns, and accounting for dynamic schema, is <a href="http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_schema_fields_sql">http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_schema_fields_sql</a> - which you can then build your query from.<br>
<br>I&#39;d imagine the hit to the schema is going to cost more than the MySQL internals for SELECT *, but otherwise it lets you get the best of both worlds in terms of correctness.<br><br>Nat<br><br>