Question

I have an SQLite table that uses an autogenerated id as primary key. I want to do bulk inserts using UNION SELECT, but it doesn’t seem to be happy unless I specify an id for each row:

sqlite> create table CelestialObject (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, name VARCHAR(25), distance REAL);
sqlite> insert into CelestialObject select 'Betelguese' as name, 200 as distance UNION SELECT 'Procyon', 500;
Error: table CelestialObject has 3 columns but 2 values were supplied

If I specify AUTOINCREMENT for the id (i.e., “id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT”) when I create the table, the error is the same.

Can anyone tell me whether there’s a way to use a bulk insert without specifying an id for each row?

Answer 1

Either provide three values per row:

INSERT INTO CelestialObject SELECT NULL, 'x', 42 ...

or explicitly specify the columns you want to fill:

INSERT INTO CelestialObject(name, distance) SELECT 'x', 42 ...

If you have SQLite 3.7.11 or later, you can do bulk inserts easier:

INSERT INTO CelestialObject(name, distance)
VALUES ('Betelgeose', 200),
       ('Procyon', 500),
       ... ;