SQL INSERT INTO Statement

INSERT INTO statement is used in SQL to insert a record into a Database table. The Syntax of INSERT INTO statement is as follows:

INSERT INTO table (column1, column2.... columnN) values (value1, value2.... valueN)

In case the set of values are equal to the number of columns, we need not specify the list of column names.
Imagine we have table called CUSTOMER, with the following data:

Rambo

Robert

Belgium

Mugambo

Norway

Nagashekar

Rao

India

If you notice, Customer Mugambo has no last name. In SQL TABLE, we can have columns that are non mandatory.
Such values are known as NULL values.
Let us look at examples of SQL INSERT INTO.

Scenario 1: Insert a record into Customer table. Firstname: Karan, Lastname: Arjun, Age: 24, Country: Italy.
We can use a INSERT INTO statement as follows.

INSERT INTO CUSTOMER VALUES ('Karan', 'Arjun', 24, 'Italy')

Result: 1 Row inserted. Table contents:

Rambo

Robert

Belgium

Mugambo

Norway

Nagashekar

Rao

India

Karan

Arjun

Italy

In the above INSERT INTO statement, we did not specify any column names as we entered the entire set.

Scenario 2: Insert a record into Customer table. Firstname: Neo, Age: 24, Country: Germany.
We can use a INSERT INTO statement as follows.

INSERT INTO CUSTOMER(FIRSTNAME, AGE, COUNTRY) VALUES ('Neo', 22, 'Germany')

Result: 1 Row inserted. Table contents:

Rambo

Robert

Belgium

Mugambo

Norway

Nagashekar

Rao

India

Karan

Arjun

Italy

Neo

Germany

In the above INSERT INTO statement, we specified column names as we entered a subset. the LASTNAME for Neo got entered into the Table as NULL