INSERT INTO table [ ( column [, ...] ) ]
{ VALUES ( expression [, ...] ) | SELECT query }
The name of an existing table.
The name of a column in table.
A valid expression or value to assign to column.
A valid query. Refer to the SELECT statement for a further description of valid arguments.
Message returned if only one row was inserted. oid is the numeric OID of the inserted row.
Message returned if more than one rows were inserted. # is the number of rows inserted.
INSERT allows one to insert new rows into a class or table. One can insert a single row at time or several rows as a result of a query. The columns in the target list may be listed in any order.
Each column not present in the target list will be inserted using a default value, either a declared DEFAULT value or NULL. Postgres will reject the new column if a NULL is inserted into a column declared NOT NULL.
If the expression for each column is not of the correct data type, automatic type coercion will be attempted.
You must have insert privilege to a table in order to append to it, as well as select privilege on any table specified in a WHERE clause.
Insert a single row into table films:
INSERT INTO films VALUES
('UA502','Bananas',105,'1971-07-13','Comedy',INTERVAL '82 minute');
In this second example the column date_prod is omitted and therefore it will have the default value of NULL:
INSERT INTO films (code, title, did, date_prod, kind)
VALUES ('T_601', 'Yojimbo', 106, DATE '1961-06-16', 'Drama');
Insert a single row into table distributors; note that only column name is specified, so the omitted column did will be assigned its default value:
INSERT INTO distributors (name) VALUES ('British Lion');
Insert several rows into table films from table tmp:
INSERT INTO films SELECT * FROM tmp;
Insert into arrays (refer to the PostgreSQL User's Guide for further information about arrays):
-- Create an empty 3x3 gameboard for noughts-and-crosses
-- (all of these queries create the same board attribute)
INSERT INTO tictactoe (game, board[1:3][1:3])
VALUES (1,'{{"","",""},{},{"",""}}');
INSERT INTO tictactoe (game, board[3][3])
VALUES (2,'{}');
INSERT INTO tictactoe (game, board)
VALUES (3,'{{,,},{,,},{,,}}');
INSERT is fully compatible with SQL92. Possible limitations in features of the query clause are documented for SELECT.