programmatically exclude new fields from render()

Question

I need to render a limited number of fields from a given content type, without exposing the new ones I may add some day in the future.

Now I have:

print render($page)

When a new field is added to the content type, I have that added to the render($page) as well. I don't want this to happen. Aside hiding the field from "admin/structure/types/manage/CONTENT_TYPE/display", how can I programmatically exclude new fields from render.

Answer 1

A common way is to use hide() function in a preprocess hook as:

hide($page['field_machine_name']);

Answer 2

What you could do is not render out all of $page. So you could get rid of:

print render($page)

And instead just render the elements within it you want e.g. :

print render($page['field_my_field']);

That will mean no matter what other fields you add in the future only the ones you specifically render in your template will be shown