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Using SELECT INTO and INSERT to insert SQL rows Part three of a four-part series of blogs
There are various ways to insert data into new or existing tables in T-SQL - this blog gives examples of each. Inserting Data into Tables using SQL Inserting Single Records into a Table Inserting Multiple Rows of Data into a Table (this blog) SELECT INTO - Making a New Table from Existing Rows This blog is part of a full online tutorial in SQL. Please have a look too at our introductory and advanced SQL training courses for businesses like yours.

Using SELECT INTO and INSERT to insert SQL rows

Part three of a four-part series of blogs

There are various ways to insert data into new or existing tables in T-SQL - this blog gives examples of each.

Inserting Data into Tables using SQL
Inserting Single Records into a Table
Inserting Multiple Rows of Data into a Table (this blog)
SELECT INTO - Making a New Table from Existing Rows

This blog is part of a full online tutorial in SQL. Please have a look too at our introductory and advanced SQL training courses for businesses like yours.

Posted by Andy Brown on 12 October 2012

Inserting Multiple Rows of Data into a Table

Instead of inserting rows one at a time, you can take the set of rows returned by a SELECT statement and add these at the bottom of an existing table, using:

INSERT INTO TableName (col1, ..., coln)
SELECT field1, ... fieldn FROM ...

The only rule is that the fields you're inserting must be of the same data type as the fields you're inserting into.

Inserting Multiple Rows - the Vanilla Version

To show how this works, let's set up two similar tables to hold names of authors (notice that the number, order and names of the columns aren't identical). First a table to hold the source authors:

CREATE TABLE tblAuthor (

AuthorId int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,

Rating int,

FirstName varchar(100),

LastName varchar(100) NOT NULL,

)

Now we'll add in 3 authors:

INSERT INTO tblAuthor (Rating, FirstName, LastName)

VALUES (10, 'John', 'Wyndham')

INSERT INTO tblAuthor (Rating, FirstName, LastName)

VALUES (8, 'Vikram', 'Seth')

INSERT INTO tblAuthor (Rating, FirstName, LastName)

VALUES (3, 'Cathy', 'Cassidy')

The table we'll insert rows into will have Surname, FirstName and Genre fields:

CREATE TABLE tblAuthorTarget (

Surname varchar(100),

FirstName varchar(100),

Genre varchar(100)

)

To insert into the target table those authors whose surnames contain a Y, first write and test the SELECT statement:

SELECT

FirstName,

LastName

FROM

tblAuthor

WHERE

-- show authors with a Y in name

LastName like '%y%'

This will return the following 2 rows:

The rows returned by this SELECT statement.

To put these rows in our target table, just add an INSERT INTO statement above it:

-- add rows into target table

INSERT INTO tblAuthorTarget (

FirstName,

Surname

)

-- rows to be added

SELECT

FirstName,

LastName

FROM

tblAuthor

WHERE

LastName like '%y%'

-- test results

SELECT * FROM tblAuthorTarget

This query will show the 2 rows added into the target table:

Notice that the column headings are different from those in the source table.

To understand this statement, remember that SQL always works with sets of rows. So the command reads: take this set of rows and put them in another table.

Using Stored Procedures to Insert Rows into a Table

You can take the results from a stored procedure and feed them into another table. For example, suppose we create a stored procedure to list out the authors in the source table whose names contain a given letter:

CREATE PROC spListAuthors(

@Letter char(1)

)

-- show authors whose names contain a given letter

SELECT

FirstName,

LastName

FROM

tblAuthor

WHERE

LastName like '%' + @Letter + '%'

You could then call this stored procedure when inserting rows into a table:

-- add rows into target table

INSERT INTO tblAuthorTarget (

FirstName,

Surname

)

-- return rows from stored procedure

EXEC spListAuthors 'H'

-- test results

SELECT * FROM tblAuthorTarget

This will show the authors whose names contain an H:

The rows returned by this excerpt of SQL.

Using a stored procedure like this can make this command easier to read, since it separates the selection of data from the insertion into a new table.

Outputting the Inserted Rows

A neat trick in SQL allows you to show selected fields from the rows inserted, using the OUTPUT keyword with Inserted. The following SQL uses UNION ALL to add 3 rows into a new table of authors:

-- create table of authors

CREATE TABLE tblAuthor (

AuthorId int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,

FirstName varchar(100),

LastName varchar(100) NOT NULL,

)

-- add in 3 authors

INSERT INTO tblAuthor(

FirstName,

LastName

)

-- list out selected columns added

OUTPUT

Inserted.AuthorId,

Inserted.FirstName,

Inserted.LastName

SELECT 'Vikram', 'Seth'

UNION ALL

SELECT 'Ian', 'Banks'

UNION ALL

SELECT 'Robert', 'Harris'

UNION ALL

SELECT 'George', 'Orwell'

Notice that we output the author's id, first name and surname for each author added:

-- list out selected columns added

OUTPUT

Inserted.AuthorId,

Inserted.FirstName,

Inserted.LastName

Here's what the above SQL would show:

We've chosen to output the author id, first name and last name for each row added.

All of the examples on this page add rows into an existing table, but what if you want to create a new one? That's the subject for the final part of this tutorial.

Parts of this blog
Inserting Data into Tables using SQL Inserting Single Records into a Table Inserting Multiple Rows of Data into a Table (this blog) SELECT INTO - Making a New Table from Existing Rows

Some other pages relevant to the above blogs include:

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