Updating a Table › Inserting Data into a Table

Inserting Data into a Table

To add complete new rows of data to an existing table, use the INSERT statement and specify the values you want to add.

How It's Done without Column Names

Suppose the company sets up a new department, the Audit department, and you need to add this information to the DEPARTMENT table. To do this, enter:

insert into department

values (4040, 1234,'D09', 'Audit');

The statement above adds the row into the table with the other department information.

Things to Remember when Using INSERT

• You can add only one row of values with one INSERT statement using the VALUE clause.
• Use INSERT INTO to identify the table to which you are going to add a new row
• Use the VALUES clause to identify the column values
• Enclose the column values in parentheses, separating them with commas
• Enclose values for character string data in single quotation marks
• The order of the column values must match the order of the columns defined for the table.
• Refer to the SQL reference manual for your environment to determine how to enter dates, money, and other types of data

Using the Keyword NULL

If you do not have data available for a particular column, you can insert the keyword NULL as a place holder if the column has been defined to allow null values.