title: Trouble with <alias>.* systax for selecting all columns from one table
body: <p>I'm doing a join here where I'm basically taking all the columns from one table with a primary key and many other columns (too many to want to type out), then left joining a second table where all columns will be aggregated against the first one's primary key. </p>
  
  <p>A simplified version is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT a.*, COUNT(DISTINCT b.date), SUM(b.spend)
  FROM table_1 a 
  LEFT JOIN table_2.b
  ON a.cust_id = b.cust_id
  GROUP BY a.* ;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I know that the above sytax works in SQL programs such as Teradata, but in SAS Enterprise Guide, using PROC SQL, I get the following error: </p>
  
  <pre><code>ERROR: * used in an illegal position.
  ERROR: The following columns were not found in the contributing tables: a.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Basically, SAS doesn't seem to recognise the * when it is preceded by a alias.</p>
  
  <p>Any suggestions? Thanks.</p>