Question

Can we simply duplicate an entry in the database based on it’s ID without having to mention all the field names for that row to be duplicated.

I have a row that looks like

id name last city state whatever
1  joe  doe  xyz  NY    yyy

I would like to make a duplicate. id is auto increment. What is the easiest way to do this.

Answer 1

Based on your comment on @Adam Wenger’s answer, I would just read all fields in one query and then build a new query skipping the id field.

Something like:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE id=some_id

php:

$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name SET ";
$first = true;
foreach ($row as $key => $value)
{
  if ($key != 'id')
  {
     if ($first) 
     {
        $first = false;
     }
     else
     {
       $sql .= ", ";
     }
     $sql .= '`' . $key . "`='" . $value . "'";
  }
}
// run query

By the way, I would generate a prepared statement in PDO for both queries so that I would not have to worry about escaping the data.