Lesson 2 | Overview of inserting data |
Objective | Describe how to insert data with Transact-SQL. |
Inserting Data via Transact SQL
Using the INSERT statement
To insert data into a table, you use the INSERT
Transact-SQL statement. With the INSERT
statement you can specify the names
of specific columns with which to insert data, or you can insert data into all of the table columns.
The INSERT
statement uses the following general syntax:
Transact SQL - Insert Syntax
The IDENTITY column
Because SQL Server automatically generates the values for the IDENTITY
column, it protects these values by not allowing insert statements that contain IDENTITY
datatypes.
However, if you do wish to insert values into your IDENTITY
column, you can instruct SQL Server to allow this by issuing this Transact-SQL statement:
SET IDENTITY_INSERT table_name ON
Where table_name is the name of the table that contains the IDENTITY
column. Remember, only one IDENTITY column can exist in a table. In the next lesson, you will get an overview of the UPDATE
statement,
which is used to update data in your tables.