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SQL Command: INSERT

• The SQL INSERT command is used to insert rows into tables in a database. It has the following syntax:

  INSERT INTO tblName (col1Name, col2Name, col3Name) VALUES (col1Val, col2Val, col3Val);

• The column names can be left out and values just provided as long as the values are specified according to the order in which the columns are defined in the table.
• For columns with numeric data types, values are specified with no surrounding quotation marks.
• For columns with string data types, values should be specified by surrounding them by single or double quotes.
  • If a string contains a quote character, it must be escaped using the \’ or \” escape sequence.
• When inserting rows into a table with an AUTO_INCREMENT column, the value NULL or 0 should be provided in order to trigger MySQL to automatically generate the ‘next’ value for the new row.
• The MySQL Monitor client can be used to run multiple SQL commands contained in a text file all at once, allowing commands to be authored ‘offline’ in a text editor.
• The < operator is used in the following manner to run the commands in a text file:

  mysql –u phpuser –p advanced_php < commands.sql

• Note: after the '-p' command switch, you can specify the database to use when processing the commands in the text file.
• Note: after the '<' operator a relative or absolute path must be provided to the .sql file.
• Additional Resources:
  • SQL Command Reference - INSERT
  • MySQL Monitor - Run Commands from Text File