How to select a column without its name in sql server?

Question

how to

select name,family from student where name="X" 

without its column name.

for example :

select "column1","column2" from student where "column1"="x"

or for example

select "1","2" from student where "1"="x"

"1" is column1 "2" is column2

i dont want to say columns name. i want to say just its number or other.... idont tired from select *. but it just for that i dont know the columns name but i know where they are. my columns name are change every i want to read the file but its data are same, and the data are in the same columns in each file.

Answer 1

Although you can not use field positions specifiers in the SELECT statement, the SQL standard includes the INFORMATION_SCHEMA where the dictionary of your tables is defined. This includes the COLUMNS view where all the fields of all tables are defined. And in this view, there is a field called ORDINAL_POSITION which you can use to assist in this problem.

If you query

SELECT ORDINAL_POSITION, COLUMN_NAME 
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE'
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

then you can obtain the column names for the ordinal positions you want. From there you can prepare a SQL statement.