MySQL INSERT Statement

The INSERT statement is used to insert data into a database table. When using the INSERT statement, you specify the table name and the values that need to be inserted.

INSERT INTO sakila.actor (first_name, last_name) 

VALUES ('Homer', 'Flinstone');

The above statement inserts "Homer Flinstone" into the actor table in the sakila database. "Homer" goes into the first_name column, "Flinstone" goes into the last_name column.

After running the above script, if we then run a SELECT statement against the table, we can see the new record has been inserted:

Variation

You can also use the INSERT statement without specifying the column names. In this case, you need to provide a value for each column, in the order that they are listed in the database. Like this:

INSERT INTO sakila.actor

VALUES (202, 'Fred', 'Simpson', '2015-06-20 14:00:00');

Follow that up with a SELECT statement and here's the result:

Insert Multiple Records

You can insert multiple rows by using a comma to separate the values. Like this:

INSERT INTO sakila.actor (first_name, last_name)

VALUES 

('Barney', 'Flinstone'),

('Marge', 'Rubble'),

('Bart', 'Griffin');

Here's the result:

The examples on this page use the Sakila sample database.