Insert into ... values ( SELECT ... FROM ... )

Question

I am trying to INSERT INTO a table using the input from another table. Although this is entirely feasible for many database engines, I always seem to struggle to remember the correct syntax for the SQL engine of the day (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, and DB2).

Is there a silver-bullet syntax coming from an SQL standard (for example, SQL-92) that would allow me to insert the values without worrying about the underlying database?

Answer 1

Try:

INSERT INTO table1 ( column1 )
SELECT  col1
FROM    table2  

This is standard ANSI SQL and should work on any DBMS

It definitely works for:

• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• MySQL
• Postgres
• SQLite v3
• Teradata
• DB2
• Sybase
• Vertica
• HSQLDB
• H2
• AWS RedShift
• SAP HANA