Always declare columns for SQL query in Rails

When ignoring a column in an ActiveRecord query you'll receive a query that declares the column names of the table explicitly versus using *.

What if you do not want to ignore a column to get this functionality? Rails 7 will introduce an ActiveRecord class attribute to do just this.

class Procedure < ApplicationRecord
  self.enumerate_columns_in_select_statements = true
end

Procedure.all

=> SELECT "procedures"."id", "procedures"."name", "procedures"."created_at", "procedures"."updated_at" FROM "procedures"

When enumerate_columns_in_select_statements is set to true, ActiveRecord SELECT queries will always include column names explicitly over using a wildcard. This change was introduced to provide consistency in query generation and avoid prepared statment issues.

Note: it can be declared at the app configuration level as well.

module MyApp
  class Application < Rails::Application
    config.active_record.enumerate_columns_in_select_statements = true
  end
end

With that change, all ActiveRecord queries will avoid the wildcard.