Rule Definition
Complex select clauses, i.e select clauses with many column can be difficult to read and does not help the reader who needs to identify the relevant columns to be retrieved. Also a query that retrieves many columns can potentially cause performance problems: Such performance problems may arise when the execution of the query returns a large result sets (many row with many colums may then become a huge amount of data to transport over the network).

Remediation
Review the SELECT statement to reduce the number of selected columns.

Violation Code Sample

Create Procedure Return_Columns As
Begin

  Select col1, col2, col3, col4, col5, col6, col7, col8, col9, col10 
   from table1, table2, table3
        where id = 1

End
GO

Fixed Code Sample

Create View Return_Columns As
  Select col1, col2, col3, col4, col5, col6, col7, col8, col9, col10 
   from table1, table2, table3
        where id = 1
GO