Insert into … values ( SELECT … FROM … )

Question

I am trying to INSERT INTO a table using the input from another table. Although this is entirely feasible for many database engines, I always seem to struggle t

Answer 1

If you go the INSERT VALUES route to insert multiple rows, make sure to delimit the VALUES into sets using parentheses, so:

INSERT INTO `receiving_table`
  (id,
  first_name,
  last_name)
VALUES 
  (1002,'Charles','Babbage'),
  (1003,'George', 'Boole'),
  (1001,'Donald','Chamberlin'),
  (1004,'Alan','Turing'),
  (1005,'My','Widenius');

Otherwise MySQL objects that "Column count doesn't match value count at row 1", and you end up writing a trivial post when you finally figure out what to do about it.

Answer 2

INSERT INTO yourtable
SELECT fielda, fieldb, fieldc
FROM donortable;

This works on all DBMS

Answer 3

Best way to insert multiple records from any other tables.

INSERT  INTO dbo.Users
            ( UserID ,
              Full_Name ,
              Login_Name ,
              Password
            )
            SELECT  UserID ,
                    Full_Name ,
                    Login_Name ,
                    Password
            FROM    Users_Table
            (INNER JOIN / LEFT JOIN ...)
            (WHERE CONDITION...)
            (OTHER CLAUSE)

Answer 4

Try:

INSERT INTO table1 ( column1 )
SELECT  col1
FROM    table2  

This is standard ANSI SQL and should work on any DBMS

It definitely works for:

• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• MySQL
• Postgres
• SQLite v3
• Teradata
• DB2
• Sybase
• Vertica
• HSQLDB
• H2
• AWS RedShift
• SAP HANA

Answer 5

To get only one value in a multi value INSERT from another table I did the following in SQLite3:

INSERT INTO column_1 ( val_1, val_from_other_table ) 
VALUES('val_1', (SELECT  val_2 FROM table_2 WHERE val_2 = something))

Answer 6

Claude Houle's answer: should work fine, and you can also have multiple columns and other data as well:

INSERT INTO table1 ( column1, column2, someInt, someVarChar )
SELECT  table2.column1, table2.column2, 8, 'some string etc.'
FROM    table2
WHERE   table2.ID = 7;

I've only used this syntax with Access, SQL 2000/2005/Express, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, so those should be covered. It should also work with SQLite3.