Select column by ordinal position

Question

Is there any way to select columns by ordinal position rather than by name?
Something like
Select t.[1] as col1, t.[2] as col2
FROM table t
The question comes because of a very specific situation where I've got 2 databases that have exactly the same schema at a column/datatype level but the column names are different.   There are a few other ways to skin the cat but I'm interested
if it can be done this way - without a join to syscolumns ;)
Chuck

Answer 1

I can select by column ordinal.  A little complex but it works - tested on a two column lookup-table (key-value)
declare @TableName
varchar(50) = 'yourtablename'
declare
@Col1 varchar(100)
= (Select
top 1 Col_Name((Select
Object_ID (@TableName)), 1
) -- 1 is the ordinal (column index)
FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE
TABLE_NAME =
@TableName)
declare
@Col2
varchar(100)
= (Select
top 1 Col_Name((Select
Object_ID (@TableName)), 2
) -- 1 is the ordinal (column index)
FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE
TABLE_NAME =
@TableName)
exec
'Select '
+ @Col1
+ ',' +
@Col2 + ' From '
+ @TableName
+ ' Order By ' +
@Col2