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13.2.4. INSERT Syntax

13.2.4.1. INSERT ... SELECT Syntax
13.2.4.2. INSERT DELAYED Syntax
13.2.4.3. INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE Syntax
INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    VALUES ({expr | DEFAULT},...),(...),...
    [ ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE col_name=expr, ... ]

Or: 

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | DELAYED | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name
    SET col_name={expr | DEFAULT}, ...
    [ ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE col_name=expr, ... ]

Or: 

INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY | HIGH_PRIORITY] [IGNORE]
    [INTO] tbl_name [(col_name,...)]
    SELECT ...
    [ ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE col_name=expr, ... ]

INSERT inserts new rows into an existing table. The INSERT ... VALUES and INSERT ... SET forms of the statement insert rows based on explicitly specified values. The INSERT ... SELECT form inserts rows selected from another table or tables. The INSERT ... VALUES form with multiple value lists is supported in MySQL 3.22.5 or later. The INSERT ... SET syntax is supported in MySQL 3.22.10 or later. INSERT ... SELECT is discussed further in Section 13.2.4.1, “INSERT ... SELECT Syntax”.

You can use REPLACE instead of INSERT to overwrite old rows. REPLACE is the counterpart to INSERT IGNORE in the treatment of new rows that contain unique key values that duplicate old rows: The new rows are used to replace the old rows rather than being discarded. See Section 13.2.6, “REPLACE Syntax”.

tbl_name is the table into which rows should be inserted. The columns for which the statement provides values can be specified as follows:

  • You can provide a comma-separated list of column names following the table name. In this case, a value for each named column must be provided by the VALUES list or the SELECT statement.

  • If you do not specify a list of column names for INSERT ... VALUES or INSERT ... SELECT, values for every column in the table must be provided by the VALUES list or the SELECT statement. If you do not know the order of the columns in the table, use DESCRIBE tbl_name to find out.

  • The SET clause indicates the column names explicitly.

Column values can be given in several ways:

  • Normally, any column not explicitly given a value is set to its default (explicit or implicit) value. For example, if you specify a column list that does not name all the columns in the table, unnamed columns are set to their default values. Default value assignment is described in Section 11.1.4, “Data Type Default Values”, and Section 1.9.6.2, “Constraints on Invalid Data”.

  • You can use the keyword DEFAULT to explicitly set a column to its default value. (New in MySQL 4.0.3.) This makes it easier to write INSERT statements that assign values to all but a few columns, because it enables you to avoid writing an incomplete VALUES list that does not include a value for each column in the table. Otherwise, you would have to write out the list of column names corresponding to each value in the VALUES list.

    As of MySQL 4.1.0, you can use DEFAULT(col_name) as a more general form that can be used in expressions to produce a given column's default value.

  • If both the column list and the VALUES list are empty, INSERT creates a row with each column set to its default value: 

    INSERT INTO tbl_name () VALUES();

  • You can specify an expression expr to provide a column value. This might involve type conversion if the type of the expression does not match the type of the column, and conversion of a given value can result in different inserted values depending on the data type. For example, inserting the string '1999.0e-2' into an INT, FLOAT, DECIMAL(10,6), or YEAR column results in the values 1999, 19.9921, 19.992100, and 1999 being inserted, respectively. The reason the value stored in the INT and YEAR columns is 1999 is that the string-to-integer conversion looks only at as much of the initial part of the string as may be considered a valid integer or year. For the floating-point and fixed-point columns, the string-to-floating-point conversion considers the entire string a valid floating-point value.

    An expression expr can refer to any column that was set earlier in a value list. For example, you can do this because the value for col2 refers to col1, which has previously been assigned: 

    INSERT INTO tbl_name (col1,col2) VALUES(15,col1*2);

    But the following is not legal, because the value for col1 refers to col2, which is assigned after col1: 

    INSERT INTO tbl_name (col1,col2) VALUES(col2*2,15);

    One exception involves columns that contain AUTO_INCREMENT values. Because the AUTO_INCREMENT value is generated after other value assignments, any reference to an AUTO_INCREMENT column in the assignment returns a 0.

INSERT statements that use VALUES syntax can insert multiple rows. To do this, include multiple lists of column values, each enclosed within parentheses and separated by commas. Example: 

INSERT INTO tbl_name (a,b,c) VALUES(1,2,3),(4,5,6),(7,8,9);

The values list for each row must be enclosed within parentheses. The following statement is illegal because the number of values in the list does not match the number of column names: 

INSERT INTO tbl_name (a,b,c) VALUES(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9);

The rows-affected value for an INSERT can be obtained using the mysql_affected_rows() C API function. See Section 17.2.3.1, “mysql_affected_rows()”.

If you use an INSERT ... VALUES statement with multiple value lists or INSERT ... SELECT, the statement returns an information string in this format: 

Records: 100 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

Records indicates the number of rows processed by the statement. (This is not necessarily the number of rows actually inserted because Duplicates can be non-zero.) Duplicates indicates the number of rows that could not be inserted because they would duplicate some existing unique index value. Warnings indicates the number of attempts to insert column values that were problematic in some way. Warnings can occur under any of the following conditions:

  • Inserting NULL into a column that has been declared NOT NULL. For multiple-row INSERT statements or INSERT INTO ... SELECT statements, the column is set to the implicit default value for the column data type. This is 0 for numeric types, the empty string ('') for string types, and the “zero” value for date and time types. INSERT INTO ... SELECT statements are handled the same way as multiple-row inserts because the server does not examine the result set from the SELECT to see whether it returns a single row. (For a single-row INSERT, no warning occurs when NULL is inserted into a NOT NULL column. Instead, the statement fails with an error.)

  • Setting a numeric column to a value that lies outside the column's range. The value is clipped to the closest endpoint of the range.

  • Assigning a value such as '10.34 a' to a numeric column. The trailing non-numeric text is stripped off and the remaining numeric part is inserted. If the string value has no leading numeric part, the column is set to 0.

  • Inserting a string into a string column (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT, or BLOB) that exceeds the column's maximum length. The value is truncated to the column's maximum length.

  • Inserting a value into a date or time column that is illegal for the data type. The column is set to the appropriate zero value for the type.

If you are using the C API, the information string can be obtained by invoking the mysql_info() function. See Section 17.2.3.33, “mysql_info()”.

If INSERT inserts a row into a table that has an AUTO_INCREMENT column, you can find the value used for that column by using the SQL LAST_INSERT_ID() function. From within the C API, use the mysql_insert_id() function. However, you should note that the two functions do not always behave identically. The behavior of INSERT statements with respect to AUTO_INCREMENT columns is discussed further in Section 12.10.3, “Information Functions”, and Section 17.2.3.35, “mysql_insert_id()”.

The INSERT statement supports the following modifiers:

  • If you use the DELAYED keyword, the server puts the row or rows to be inserted into a buffer, and the client issuing the INSERT DELAYED statement can then continue immediately. If the table is in use, the server holds the rows. When the table is free, the server begins inserting rows, checking periodically to see whether there are any new read requests for the table. If there are, the delayed row queue is suspended until the table becomes free again. See Section 13.2.4.2, “INSERT DELAYED Syntax”. DELAYED was added in MySQL 3.22.5.

    DELAYED is ignored with INSERT ... SELECT or INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE.

  • If you use the LOW_PRIORITY keyword, execution of the INSERT is delayed until no other clients are reading from the table. This includes other clients that began reading while existing clients are reading, and while the INSERT LOW_PRIORITY statement is waiting. It is possible, therefore, for a client that issues an INSERT LOW_PRIORITY statement to wait for a very long time (or even forever) in a read-heavy environment. (This is in contrast to INSERT DELAYED, which lets the client continue at once. Note that LOW_PRIORITY should normally not be used with MyISAM tables because doing so disables concurrent inserts. See Section 7.3.3, “Concurrent Inserts”. LOW_PRIORITY was added in MySQL 3.22.5.

  • If you specify HIGH_PRIORITY, it overrides the effect of the --low-priority-updates option if the server was started with that option. It also causes concurrent inserts not to be used. See Section 7.3.3, “Concurrent Inserts”. HIGH_PRIORITY was added in MySQL 3.23.11.

  • If you use the IGNORE keyword, errors that occur while executing the INSERT statement are treated as warnings instead. For example, without IGNORE, a row that duplicates an existing UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY value in the table causes a duplicate-key error and the statement is aborted. With IGNORE, the row still is not inserted, but no error is issued. Data conversions that would trigger errors abort the statement if IGNORE is not specified. With IGNORE, invalid values are adjusted to the closest values and inserted; warnings are produced but the statement does not abort. You can determine with the mysql_info() C API function how many rows were actually inserted into the table.

  • If you specify ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE, and a row is inserted that would cause a duplicate value in a UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY, an UPDATE of the old row is performed. See Section 13.2.4.3, “INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE Syntax”. ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE was added in MySQL 4.1.0.


User Comments

Posted by Yakov on July 8 2003 4:08am[Delete] [Edit]

To insert special characters, like the "apostrophe" read the section on string syntax: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/String_syntax.html

Here's an example:
insert into Citylist (cityname) VALUES ('St. John\'s')


Posted by Csongor Fagyal on September 8 2004 10:13am[Delete] [Edit]

Please note: "INSERT... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE..." can also use a compound (unique) key to check for duplication. This is very userful. For example:
If you have a log table to log hits to different websites daily, with "site_id"-s and "time" fields, where neither of them are primary keys, but togethether they are unique, then you can create a key on them, and then use "...ON DUPLICATE KEY..."

Table logs:
id: INT(11) auto_increment primary key
site_id: INT(11)
time: DATE
hits: INT(11)

Then:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX comp ON logs (`site_id`, `time`);

And then you can:
INSERT INTO logs (`site_id`, `time`,`hits`) VALUES (1,"2004-08-09", 15) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE hits=hits+15;

Excellent feature, and it is much faster and briefer then using first a select, then issuing either an update or an insert depending on the value of the select. You also get rid of the probably necessary table-lock during this action.

Posted by Jason McManus on October 16 2004 3:02pm[Delete] [Edit]

When using the INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE statement, the returned value is as follows:

1 for each successful INSERT.
2 for each successful UPDATE.

For example, if you insert 5 rows with this syntax, and 3 of them were inserted while 2 were updated, the return value would be 7:
((3 inserts * 1) + (2 updates * 2)) = 7.

The return value may at first appear worrisome, as only 5 rows in the table were actually modified, but actually provides more information, because you can determine the quantities of each query type performed from the return value.

For further information, see:
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=2709

Posted by Dark Lady on January 10 2005 1:33pm[Delete] [Edit]

Fusion des fiches / How to make a file fusion and save it in a new table?

Le code suivant permet de créer une nouvelle table appelée "fusion" avec les champs partition en, classe, segment, F tot, F loc et indice specif.

CREATE TABLE `fusion` (
`partition en` VARCHAR( 11 ) NOT NULL,
`classe` VARCHAR( 11 ) NOT NULL,
`segment` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`F tot` INT NOT NULL ,
`F loc` INT NOT NULL ,
`indice specif` INT NOT NULL
);

On peut mettre à la suite de ce code, le code suivant autant de fois que voulu qui permet de fusionner les tables dans la nouvelle table "fusion":

INSERT INTO l4stal13prema00.`fusion` ( `partition en` ,
`classe` ,
`segment` ,
`F tot` ,
`F loc` ,
`indice specif` )
SELECT *
FROM f3p1
WHERE 1;

INSERT INTO l4stal13prema00.`fusion` ( `partition en` ,
`classe` ,
`segment` ,
`F tot` ,
`F loc` ,
`indice specif` )
SELECT *
FROM f3p2
WHERE 1;

Posted by Dark Lady on January 10 2005 1:43pm[Delete] [Edit]

Eviter les répétitions grâce à count(Segment)/ How to avoid REPETITIONS and save it in a new table with COUNT and INSERT ?

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Counting_rows.html

If you know another way when inserting several files with almost the same data (cat dog turtle + cat dog parrot= cat dog turtle parrot) and avoid repetition, tell it please?

Posted by Rolf Kleef on January 27 2005 12:46pm[Delete] [Edit]

Perhaps it's good to add a reference in the part on the ON DUPLICATE KEY feature to the older REPLACE function, which does a DELETE+INSERT instead of an UPDATE in case of existing key/unique values.

Posted by André Somplatzki on March 22 2005 3:16pm[Delete] [Edit]

If you do an "INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ..." and neither an insert is possible (because of duplicate keys) nor an update is necessary (because of identical values) you get "2 affected rows" anyway.

Posted by Allen Morris on August 14 2006 9:49pm[Delete] [Edit]

If you need plan to get the LAST_INSERT_ID() from a INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY. use ``insert into ... on duplicate key id = LAST_INSERT_ID(id), ...;''

If you do this then SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID() will return either the inserted id or the updated id.

Posted by Jun-Dai Bates-Kobashigawa on August 18 2005 7:19am[Delete] [Edit]

I haven't seen this mentioned elsewhere on this page, but you can use a SELECT statement as a single value if it returns a single value. For example, if we have two tables, t1 and t2:

CREATE TABLE t1 (
a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
b VARCHAR(10)) TYPE=InnoDB;

INSERT INTO t1 (b) VALUES ('Spike'), ('Chip'), ('John');

CREATE TABLE t2 (
a INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
b INT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY (b) REFERENCES t1 (a),
c VARCHAR(15)) TYPE=InnoDB;

We can INSERT rows into t2 that populate the foreign key column based on a SELECT statement on t1:

INSERT INTO t2 (b, c)
VALUES ((SELECT a FROM t1 WHERE b='Chip'), 'shoulder'),
((SELECT a FROM t1 WHERE b='Chip'), 'old block'),
((SELECT a FROM t1 WHERE b='John'), 'toilet'),
((SELECT a FROM t1 WHERE b='John'), 'long,silver'),
((SELECT a FROM t1 WHERE b='John'), 'li''l');


Then we get:
mysql> SELECT * FROM t2;

+---+---+-------------+
| a | b | c           |
+---+---+-------------+
| 1 | 2 | shoulder    |
| 2 | 2 | old block   |
| 3 | 3 | toilet      |
| 4 | 3 | long,silver |
| 5 | 3 | li'l        |
+---+---+-------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)


This is especially useful if you don't want to specify the ids for your rows (because they may differ from database to database, due to their being based on AUTO_INCREMENTs), but you want to refer to the values of other tables.

I haven't tested this to determine the version of MySQL this was introduced into, or whether it is necessary that the tables be InnoDB, but it works on my boxes (MySQL 4.1.12)

Posted by Laurent Sarlette on April 28 2006 4:37pm[Delete] [Edit]

If you want to add to a tableA a column existing in a tableB:

1) Create an empty column in the tableA:

ALTER TABLE tableA ADD color CHAR(20);

2) If you don't have an auto-incrementation in the two tables (tableB for exemple):

ALTER TABLE tableB ADD (id INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY(id));

3) Fill the columns with the values:

UPDATE tableA,tableB SET tableA.color=tableB.color WHERE tableA.id=tableB.id;

Posted by Jan Jędrzejczyk on October 10 2006 6:37pm[Delete] [Edit]

If you want to combine insert..select with setting an explicit value for a column - you can use join:

INSERT INTO TargetTable (col1, col2, col3)
SELECT col1,col2,col3
FROM SourceTable JOIN (SELECT 'ExplicitValue' AS col3) AS AnyAlias

This looks quite simple but it took me several hours to understand that there's no need for a special statement to handle such cases.

Regards!

Posted by Diego d'Ippolito on December 15 2006 4:44pm[Delete] [Edit]

To Jan Jędrzejczyk:

> INSERT INTO TargetTable (col1, col2, col3)
> SELECT col1,col2,col3
> FROM SourceTable
> JOIN (SELECT 'ExplicitValue' AS col3) AS AnyAlias

You could easily do the same thing just by using:

INSERT INTO TargetTable (col1, col2, col3)
SELECT col1,col2, 'ExplicitValue'
FROM SourceTable

hth,

Lokar

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