INSERT INTO Statement

The SQL INSERT INTO Statement

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

INSERT INTO Syntax

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

The first way specifies both the column names and the values to be inserted:

INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, column3, ...)
VALUES (value1, value2, value3, ...);

If you are adding values for all the columns of the table, you do not need to specify the column names in the SQL query. However, make sure the order of the values is in the same order as the columns in the table. The INSERT INTO syntax would be as follows:

INSERT INTO table_name
VALUES (value1, value2, value3, ...);

Demo Database

Below is a selection from the "Customers" table :

INSERT INTO Example

INSERT INTO Customers (CustomerName, City, Country)
VALUES ('Cardinal', 'Stavanger', 'Norway');

The following SQL statement inserts a new record in the "Customers" table:

INSERT INTO Customers (Customer Name, Contact Name, Address, City, Postal Code, Country)
VALUES ('Cardinal', 'Tom B. Erichsen', 'Skagen 21', 'Stavanger', '4006', 'Norway');

The selection from the "Customers" table will now look like this:

Did you notice that we did not insert any number into the CustomerID field? The Customer ID column is an auto-increment field and will be generated automatically when a new record is inserted into the table.

Insert Data Only in Specified Columns

It is also possible to only insert data in specific columns.

The following SQL statement will insert a new record, but only insert data in the "Customer Name", "City", and "Country" columns (CustomerID will be updated automatically):

INSERT INTO Customers (CustomerName, City, Country)
VALUES ('Cardinal', 'Stavanger', 'Norway');

The selection from the "Customers" table will now look like this: