INSERT INTO … SELECT without detailing all columns

Question

How do you insert selected rows from table_source to table_target using SQL in MySQL where:

• Both tables have the same schema

Answer 1

You can probably do it with prepared statements.

PREPARE table_target_insert FROM 'INSERT INTO table_target SELECT ? FROM table_source';
SET @cols:='';
SELECT @cols:=GROUP_CONCAT(IF(column_name = 'id','NULL',column_name) separator ",") FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name='table_source';
EXECUTE table_target_insert USING @cols;

Answer 2

Column names have to be specified -

INSERT INTO table_target SELECT NULL, column_name1, column_name2, column_name3, ...
  FROM table_source;

Just pass NULL as a value for the auto-increment id field.

Answer 3

I think you could use syntax like:

INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
  ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=c+1;

REF: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/insert-on-duplicate.html Hope it helps

Answer 4

The easiest way to do it is to use phpmyadmin to write the list of columns, then to change it as needed, in the example below I want to duplicate row with id=1078 and in this table I have id unique auto increment and alias unique.therefore I created my query as follow, with id & alias replaced by a desired value. and it worked like a charm.

INSERT INTO sy3_menuselect 1079, menutype, title, "alias", note, path, link, type, published, parent_id, level, component_id, checked_out, checked_out_time, browserNav, access, img, template_style_id, params, lft, rgt, home, language, client_id from sy3_menuwhere id=1078

Alternatively, to auto increment id, use the following Join statement: INSERT INTO sy3_menuselect * from (SELECT MAX(id+1 )from sy3_menu)a join (select menutype, title, "alias", note, path, link, type, published, parent_id, level, component_id, checked_out, checked_out_time, browserNav, access, img, template_style_id, params, lft, rgt, home, language, client_idfrom sy3_menuwhere id=1079)b

Answer 5

It seems as if columns can not be given as a place holder in a MySQL Prepared Statement. I have compiled the following solution for testing:

SET @schema_db = 'DB';
SET @table = 'table';
SET @cols = (SELECT CONCAT(GROUP_CONCAT(COLUMN_NAME SEPARATOR ', '), "\n") FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = @schema_db AND TABLE_NAME = @table GROUP BY TABLE_NAME);
SET @Querystr = CONCAT('SELECT',' ', @cols,' ','FROM',' ',@schema_db,'.',@table,' ', 'Limit 5');
PREPARE stmt FROM @Querystr;
EXECUTE stmt;