MySQL create / select adds fields from the source table - mysql

Question

I encountered an issue with MySQL, adding fields from the selected source table.
Here is an example (you can find it on SQL Fiddle :
CREATE TABLE source_table (
id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
foo VARCHAR(3),
INDEX (id)
);
INSERT INTO source_table (id, foo) VALUES (1, "one");
// Create another table and fill it from the source_table
CREATE TABLE example_table (
id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
bar VARCHAR (3),
INDEX (id)
) SELECT
source_table.id,
source_table.foo
FROM source_table
WHERE source_table.id = 1;
In the end, my example_table will have a foo field, that I never requested to be create.
Plus, bar will be empty while foo will be filled.
The solution I found is to use aliases for each field, but it's redundant:
CREATE TABLE example_table (
id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
bar VARCHAR (3),
INDEX (id)
) SELECT
source_table.id AS id,
source_table.foo AS bar
FROM source_table
WHERE source_table.id = 1;
Is there any trick in MySQL's configuration to avoid this behaviour? I feel like it would create surprising tables.

Answer 1

This is the documented behaviour of insert ... select ..., so there is no way to configure it to avoid this behaviour:
MySQL creates new columns for all elements in the SELECT. For example:
mysql> CREATE TABLE test (a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
-> PRIMARY KEY (a), KEY(b))
-> ENGINE=MyISAM SELECT b,c FROM test2;
This creates a MyISAM table with three columns, a, b, and c.