Question

I am inserting data into a database that looks like this:
(1, 'blue'), (2,'large'), (3, 'round')

The numbers there correspond to ID’s from another table. that looks like: id | value

When inserting this data I want to insert the actual value that the number corresponds to, not the id.

Is there any query to do this? or do I need match the values before sending it to the database?

While I know it won’t work, I am hoping there is something like:
insert into table2 (table1.value[id=1], 'blue'), (table1.value[id=2],'large'), (table1.value[id=3], 'round') join table1

I imagine I could use:

insert into table2 
    ((select value from table1 where id=1), 'blue'), 
    ((select value from table1 where id=2),'large'), 
    ((select value from table1 where id=3), 'round')

But with say, 40 different attributes that would make 41 queries!

Answer 1

First virtually make up a table with the values you want to insert (id,value), then join the derived table to table1 and INSERT the result into table2.

insert into table2
     select t.value, madeup.other
       from (select 1 id, 'blue' other union all
             select 2, 'large' union all
             select 3, 'round') madeup
       join table1 t on t.id = madeup.id;