Slide 6.8: SQL INSERT INTO statement

SQL INSERT INTO Statement

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

 INSERT INTO table-name
   [ ( list-of-column-names ) ] VALUES ( data-items );

 SQL> INSERT INTO student VALUES (
   2    '1', 'Jones', 'Allan', 2, '555-1234' );

It is possible to write the INSERT INTO statement in two ways:

 INSERT INTO table VALUES ( value1, value2, .... );

 INSERT INTO table ( col1, col2, col3, ... )
   VALUES ( value1, value2, .... );

The first form does not specify the column names where the data will be inserted, only their values.
The second form specifies both the column names and the values to be inserted.

The following empty table person was created by the previous create table statement:

person_id	last_name	first_name	address	city

Insert three persons into the table person:

 INSERT INTO person VALUES (1, 'Hansen', 'Ola', 'Timoteivn 10', 'Sandnes');
 INSERT INTO person VALUES (2, 'Svendson', 'Tove', 'Borgvn 23', 'Sandnes');
 INSERT INTO person VALUES (3, 'Pettersen', 'Kari', 'Storgt 20', 'Stavanger');

The table person now becomes the following:

person_id	last_name	first_name	address	city
1	Hansen	Ola	Timoteivn 10	Sandnes
2	Svendson	Tove	Borgvn 23	Sandnes
3	Pettersen	Kari	Storgt 20	Stavanger

The values of the respective tuple are the data items separated by commas. If new values are to be entered for certain attributes but not for all, the respective columns must be indicated explicitly; the remaining columns are filled with null values.

Demonstration
Below is an SQL test area from W3Schools, which uses the well-known Northwind sample database. The tables here are for read only because of the problem of embedding the scripts. For a fully working example, check this by using Chrome.

Result:

The Database includes:

Tablename	Record
Customers	91
Categories	8
Employees	10
OrderDetails	518
Orders	196
Products	77
Shippers	3
Suppliers	29

W3C WebSQL

WebSQL Browser Support