SQL INSERT INTOStatements

The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert new records into a table.

SQL INSERT INTO Statement

The INSERT INTO statement is used to insert new records into a table.

SQL INSERT INTO Syntax

The INSERT INTO statement can be written in two forms.

The first form does not need to specify the column names for the data to be inserted; you only need to provide the values to be inserted:

INSERT INTO table_name
VALUES (value1,value2,value3,...);

The second form requires specifying the column names and the values to be inserted:

INSERT INTO table_name (column1,column2,column3,...)
VALUES (value1,value2,value3,...);

Parameter Description:

  • table_name: The name of the table into which new records need to be inserted.
  • column1, column2, ...: The name of the field to be inserted.
  • value1, value2, ...: The field value to be inserted.

Demo Database

In this tutorial, we will use the EXAMPLE sample database.

Below is data selected from the "Websites" table:

+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| id | name         | url                       | alexa | country |
+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| 1  | Google       | https://www.google.cm/    | 1     | USA     |
| 2  | 淘宝          | https://www.taobao.com/   | 13    | CN      |
| 3  | Example      | http://www.example.com/    | 4689  | CN      |
| 4  | 微博          | http://weibo.com/         | 20    | CN      |
| 5  | Facebook     | https://www.facebook.com/ | 3     | USA     |
+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+

INSERT INTO Example

Suppose we want to insert a new row into the "Websites" table.

We can use the following SQL statement:

Example

INSERT INTO Websites (name, url, alexa, country) VALUES ('Baidu','https://www.baidu.com/','4','CN');

After executing the above SQL and reading the "Websites" table, the data is as follows:


lamp Did you notice that we did not insert any number into the id field?
The id column is automatically updated, and each record in the table has a unique number.

Insert Data into Specified Columns

We can also insert data into specified columns.

The following SQL statement will insert a new row, but only insert data into the "name", "url", and "country" columns (the id field will be automatically updated):

Example

INSERT INTO Websites (name, url, country) VALUES ('stackoverflow', 'http://stackoverflow.com/', 'IND');

After executing the above SQL and reading the "Websites" table, the data is as follows:

Other Extensions