Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the PostgreSQL INSERT
statement to insert a new row into a table.
The PostgreSQL INSERT
statement allows you to insert a new row into a table.
Here’s the basic syntax of the INSERT
statement:
INSERT INTO table1(column1, column2, …)
VALUES (value1, value2, …);
In this syntax:
table1
) that you want to insert data after the INSERT INTO
keywords and a list of comma-separated columns (colum1, column2, ....
).(value1, value2, ...)
after the VALUES
keyword. The column and value lists must be in the same order.The INSERT
statement returns a command tag with the following form:
INSERT oid count
In this syntax:
OID
is an object identifier. PostgreSQL used the OID
internally as a primary key for its system tables. Typically, the INSERT
statement returns OID
with a value of 0.count
is the number of rows that the INSERT
statement inserted successfully.If you insert a new row into a table successfully, the return will typically look like:
INSERT 0 1
The INSERT
statement has an optional RETURNING
clause that returns the information of the inserted row.
If you want to return the entire inserted row, you use an asterisk (*
) after the RETURNING
keyword:
INSERT INTO table1(column1, column2, …)
VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING *;
If you want to return some information about the inserted row, you can specify one or more columns after the RETURNING
clause.
For example, the following statement returns the id
of the inserted row:
INSERT INTO table1(column1, column2, …)
VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING id;
To rename the returned value, you use the AS
keyword followed by the name of the output. For example:
INSERT INTO table1(column1, column2, …)
VALUES (value1, value2, …)
RETURNING output_expression AS output_name;
To insert multiple rows into a table simultaneously, you can use the INSERT multiple rows statement.
The following statement creates a new table called links
for the demonstration:
CREATE TABLE links (
id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
url VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
description VARCHAR (255),
last_update DATE
);
Note that you will learn how to create a new table in the subsequent tutorial. In this tutorial, you need to execute it to create a new table.
The following example uses the INSERT
statement to insert a new row into the links
table:
INSERT INTO links (url, name)
VALUES('https://neon.com/postgresql','PostgreSQL Tutorial');
The statement returns the following output:
INSERT 0 1
To insert character data, you enclose it in single quotes (‘) for example 'PostgreSQL Tutorial'
.
If you omit the not null columns in the INSERT
statement, PostgreSQL will issue an error. But if you omit the null column, PostgreSQL will use the column default value for insertion.
In this example, the description
is a nullable column because it doesn’t have a NOT NULL
constraint. Therefore, PostgreSQL uses NULL
to insert into the description
column.
PostgreSQL automatically generates a sequential number for the serial column so you do not have to supply a value for the serial column in the INSERT
statement.
The following SELECT
statement shows the contents of the links
table:
SELECT * FROM links;
Output:
id | url | name | description | last_update
----+------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------
1 | https://neon.com/postgresql | PostgreSQL Tutorial | null | null
(1 row)
If you want to insert a string that contains a single quote ('
) such as O'Reilly Media
, you have to use an additional single quote ('
) to escape it. For example:
INSERT INTO links (url, name)
VALUES('http://www.oreilly.com','O''Reilly Media');
Output:
INSERT 0 1
The following statement verifies the insert:
SELECT * FROM links;
Output:
id | url | name | description | last_update
----+------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------
1 | https://neon.com/postgresql | PostgreSQL Tutorial | null | null
2 | http://www.oreilly.com | O'Reilly Media | null | null
(2 rows)
To insert a date into a DATE
column, you use the date in the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
.
For example, the following statement inserts a new row with a specified date into the links
table:
INSERT INTO links (url, name, last_update)
VALUES('https://www.google.com','Google','2013-06-01');
Output:
INSERT 0 1
The following statement retrieves all data from the links table to verify the insert:
id | url | name | description | last_update
----+------------------------------------+---------------------+-------------+-------------
1 | https://neon.com/postgresql | PostgreSQL Tutorial | null | null
2 | http://www.oreilly.com | O'Reilly Media | null | null
3 | https://www.google.com | Google | null | 2013-06-01
(3 rows)
To get the last inserted ID from the inserted row, you use the RETURNING
clause of the INSERT
statement.
For example, the following statement inserts a new row into the links
table and returns the last inserted id:
INSERT INTO links (url, name)
VALUES('https://www.postgresql.org','PostgreSQL')
RETURNING id;
Output:
id
----
4
(1 row)
INSERT
statement to insert a new row into a table.RETURNING
clause to get the inserted rows.RetroSearch is an open source project built by @garambo | Open a GitHub Issue
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