Summary  
This chapter covers using the asterisk wildcard in a SELECT statement to retrieve every column from a database table in a single query.

General domain of usage  
Relational database querying

Instead of listing each column, you can use the asterisk `*` to retrieve all columns from the table at once. This is especially useful when you need to view all the data in a table without manually typing out each column name. Here’s an example:

import unittest
import psycopg2
import pandas as pd
import re

class TestTask(unittest.TestCase):
    @classmethod
    def setUpClass(cls):
        cls.connection = psycopg2.connect(
            host="localhost",
            user="agent",
            password="qwerty",
            dbname="testdb",
            sslmode="disable"
        )
        cls.cursor = cls.connection.cursor()

    def test_query_selects_all_columns_with_asterisk(self):
        """Check that the query uses '*' to select all columns from country table."""
        with open("query.sql", "r") as file:
            query = file.read()
        # Normalize whitespace and lowercase
        norm_query = normalize_text(query)
        # Check for correct pattern
        condition = (
            'select * from country' in norm_query or
            'select*from country' in norm_query or
            'select *from country' in norm_query or
            'select* from country' in norm_query
        )
        _dynamic_test(
            self,
            condition,
            "Query uses '*' to select all columns from country table.",
            "Query does not use '*' to select all columns from country table."
        )

    def test_query_returns_all_columns(self):
        """Check that the query result returns all 7 columns from country table."""
        with open("query.sql", "r") as file:
            query = file.read()
        self.cursor.execute(query)
        result_columns = [desc[0] for desc in self.cursor.description]
        # Get actual columns from country table
        self.cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM country LIMIT 1")
        expected_columns = [desc[0] for desc in self.cursor.description]
        condition = result_columns == expected_columns
        _dynamic_test(
            self,
            condition,
            "Query returns all columns from country table.",
            f"Query does not return all columns. Expected: {expected_columns}, Got: {result_columns}"
        )

    def test_query_returns_all_rows(self):
        """Check that the query returns all rows from the country table."""
        with open("query.sql", "r") as file:
            query = file.read()
        self.cursor.execute(query)
        user_rows = self.cursor.fetchall()
        self.cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM country")
        expected_rows = self.cursor.fetchall()
        condition = len(user_rows) == len(expected_rows)
        _dynamic_test(
            self,
            condition,
            "Query returns all rows from country table.",
            f"Query does not return all rows. Expected {len(expected_rows)} rows, got {len(user_rows)} rows."
        )

def _dynamic_test(test_case, condition, success_message, failure_message):
    if condition:
        test_case._testMethodName = success_message
        test_case.assertTrue(True, success_message)
    else:
        test_case._testMethodName = failure_message
        test_case.fail(failure_message)

def normalize_text(text):
    text = text.lower()
    text = re.sub(r"\s{2,}", " ", text)
    text = re.sub(r"\s*([,:?])\s*", r"\1 ", text)
    return text.strip()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()


test_solution.py

Learn the core fundamentals of SQL and relational databases. Understand how databases store and organize data, write basic SQL queries, work with tables and perform essential operations. Build a strong foundation for working with databases in backend development.

Retrieving All Columns

Løsning