Programming

This is about the one thing where SQL is a badly designed language, and you should use a frontend that forces you to write your queries in the order (table, filter, columns) for consistency.

UPDATE table_name WHERE y = $3 SET w = $1, x = $2, z = $4 RETURNING *
FROM table_name SELECT w, x, y, z

Unrelated, but use placeholders instead of interpolation right into the query.

See: Little Bobby Tables. https://xkcd.com/327/

If it's Microsoft SQL you should be able to replay the transaction log. But you should be doing something like daily full backups and hourly incremental or differential backups to avoid this situation in the first place.

Things like this make me glad I can only query my db.

Ctrl+z bro

Jk, sounds tough

SQL scouts credo: I will never use indexes, I will always use column names.

I learned this lesson too

I‘m using DataGrip (IntelliJ) for any manual SQL tomfoolery. I have been where you are. Luckily for me, the tool asks for additional confirmation when doing any update/delete without where clause.

Also, backups are a must, for all the right reasons and for any project.

Been there, done that, I hope you have a recent backup!

I know it's too late to be helpful now, but I always write the WHERE first, because you are not the first person to have done this...