[thelist] Rusty PHP questions...

[Joel D Canfield]

> 1. One best practice is to never use SELECT * - could someone 
> explain why,
> and tell me when this is okay if ever? Right now I am doing this:

my primary argument is future needs: listing all the columns makes it
really easy to change from 'select * ' to 'select * except for column
13' which you can't do. it's also self-documenting. right there in your
code you've got all the column names, when you come back in six weeks to
adjust something.

> 2. They are connecting to the db directly in the page code, 
> which I know is
> a no-no - is the best way to do this simply to have an include like '
> connect.php'? 

I know less PHP than you, Tom, but from an ASP perspective, it's
cleaner, safer, and more efficient to put the db connection in an
include, as you suggest here

joel