Presence of Unneeded Fields?

[Aaron Bertrand [MVP]]

No, your bandwidth will only be affected by what you actually ask for. Now,
if you have a where clause and you have indexes (e.g. a clustered index) on
the useless columns but not on the ones you're actually querying, you might
see an efficiency hit (e.g. table scan). So, you'll want to check that any
indexes on the table are geared to your application, and aren't wasted on
useless columns.

--
Aaron Bertrand
SQL Server MVP
[url]http://www.aspfaq.com/[/url]


"MDW" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:14E6E31C-39CD-4DB5-AB89-84B69ED63D0F@microsoft.com...

> Hey all.
>
> Suppose I have a data table (SQL Server 2000) I'm going to be interacting
> with via ASP. The columns I need are AcNum and OpenDate. The table also
> happens to conatin, say, 20 other fields I have no interest in.
>
> Assuming my sql statements explicitly request only those fields I need
> ("SELECT AcNum,OpenDate FROM...."), would those extra fields cause any
> overhead to ASP? (We're in a very bandwidth-limited environment.) The
> reason I ask is because the person who creates this data (not me) can
> eliminate some of the fields that are generated if I request it. But if
> there's no efficiency impact, I see no reason to.

[MDW]

OK, thanks

I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the "unneeded" columns will become "needed" in the future, so I was hoping that the answer was that I could keep those columns intact.