In the case I described I just update all the fields. Anything else is just way too tedious and big prone. I hear that ORMs come in handy in such case but then they have their own set of bigger problems as others have pointed out here.
The good part though is such cases to update all the fields are very few. In 90-95% updates I exactly know which fields are getting updates and for what reasons.
The good part though is such cases to update all the fields are very few. In 90-95% updates I exactly know which fields are getting updates and for what reasons.