PostgreSQL Insert Data

Insert Into

To insert data into a table in PostgreSQL, we use the INSERT INTO statement.

The following SQL statement will insert one row of data into the cars table you created in the previous chapter.

INSERT INTO cars (brand, model, year)
VALUES (‘Ford’, ‘Mustang’, 1964);

The SQL Shell application will return the following:

INSERT 0 1

Which means that 1 row was inserted.

Don’t think about the 0, for now, just accept that it represents something else and will always be 0.

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SQL Statement Explained

As you can see in the SQL statement above, string values must be written with apostrophes.

Numeric values can be written without apostrophes, but you can include them if you want.

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Display Table

To check the result we can display the table with this SQL statement:

SELECT * FROM cars;



Which will return this result:



 brand |  model  | year-------+---------+------ Ford  | Mustang | 1964(1 row)

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Insert Multiple Rows

To insert multiple rows of data, we use the same INSERT INTO statement, but with multiple values:

INSERT INTO cars (brand, model, year)VALUES  ('Volvo', 'p1800', 1968),  ('BMW', 'M1', 1978),  ('Toyota', 'Celica', 1975);



The SQL Shell application will return the following:



INSERT 0 3



Which means 3 rows were successfully inserted.

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Display Table

To check the result we can display the table with this SQL statement:

Example

SELECT * FROM cars;

Run Example »

Click the “Run Example” button to see the result of the select statement.

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PostgreSQL Exercises

Test Yourself With Exercises

Exercise:

Write the correct SQL statement to insert new records into the cars table: cars (brand, model, year) (‘Ford’, ‘Mustang’, 1964); Submit Answer »