Understanding Data Insertion

SELECT is undoubtedly the most frequently used SQL statement (which is why the past 17 chapters were dedicated to it). But there are three other frequently used SQL statements that you should learn. The first one is INSERT. (You'll get to the other two in the next chapter.)

As its name suggests, INSERT is used to insert (add) rows to a database table. INSERT can be used in several ways:

• To insert a single complete row

• To insert a single partial row

• To insert multiple rows

• To insert the results of a query

You'll now look at each of these.

Tip

INSERT and System Security Use of the INSERT statement can be disabled per table or per user using MySQL security, as will be explained in Chapter 28, "Managing Security."