Wenn man zum Beispiel bei einem komplexen Join automatisch alle Spalten mit Prefixen für eine Tabelle versehen will kann man folgenden Code verwenden:
function fetchAssoc(&$db, $strQuery)
{
  $result = $db->query($strQuery);
  $arReturn = array();
  while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc())
  {
    $arReturn[] = $row;
  }
  return $arReturn;
} 
function prefixed_table(&$db, $table_alias, $table)
{
  $columns = fetchAssoc($db, "SHOW COLUMNS FROM `".$table."`");
  $field_names = array();
  foreach ($columns as $column)
  {
    $field_names[] = $column["Field"];
  }
  $prefixed = array();
  foreach ($field_names as $field_name)
  {
  	$prefixed[] = "`".$table_alias."`.`".$field_name."` AS `".$table.".".$field_name."`";
  }
	return implode(", ", $prefixed);
}
Beispielhafte Anwendung für einen xtCommerce Export:
define(TBL_PRODUCTS, ‚xt_products‘);
define(TBL_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION, ‚xt_products_description‘);
define(TBL_PRODUCTS_CATEGORIE, ‚xt_products_to_categories‘); 
$db = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME);
$strQuery = "
  SELECT
    ".prefixed_table($db, ‚P‘, TBL_PRODUCTS).",
    ".prefixed_table($db, ‚PD‘, TBL_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION).",
    GROUP_CONCAT(PC.`categories_id`) AS `".TBL_PRODUCTS_CATEGORIE.".categories_id`,
    GROUP_CONCAT(PC.`master_link`) AS `".TBL_PRODUCTS_CATEGORIE.".master_link`
  FROM
    `".TBL_PRODUCTS."` AS P
      LEFT JOIN `".TBL_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION."` AS PD ON (P.`products_id` = PD.`products_id`)
      LEFT JOIN `".TBL_PRODUCTS_CATEGORIE."` AS PC ON (P.`products_id` = PC.`products_id`)
  GROUP BY
    P.`products_id`
";
$product_data = fetchAssoc($db, $strQuery);