Question

I have an array with multiple elements. The size of the array isn’t always the same.

At the moment the only way I can think of doing is using a foreach loop and querying the database once for every element in the array.

What I am looking for a way to insert one row for one element in the array but all in one query. I would like to do is using codeigniter’s active record class so that I wouldn’t have to write code to check for malicious data and such.

Answer 1

Use insert_batch if you just want one query:

$data = array();

// Sample data
$items = array('Value 1', 'Value 2', 'Value 3');

foreach ($items as $value)
{
    $data[] = array(
        'your_column_name'  =>  $value,

        // Populate more columns here if you need to
        'date_created'      =>  time()
    );
}

$this->db->insert_batch('mytable', $data); 

All values are escaped automatically.

Docs: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/active_record.html#insert