Question

i have small problem with inserting data into my table “events”

 +-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
 | Field | Type     | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
 +-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
 | id    | int(11)  | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
 | name  | longtext | YES  |     | NULL    |                |
 +-------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

from my view old_data:

+-------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| event | text | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+------+------+-----+---------+-------+

I want to insert data from field “event” from view old_data into “name” field in table “events” to do this i was trying to use commands:

 insert into 'events' ('name') select 'event' from 'old_data'
 insert into 'events' ('name') select 'event' from 'old_data' group by 'event';

etc etc. Every time it’s syntax error. WHY?!

Answer 1

Your use of apostrophe delimiters around your identifiers is incorrect (they are for delimiting strings). Try:

INSERT INTO events (name) SELECT event FROM old_data;

If you want to use delimiters around identifiers, you should use backtick (`):

INSERT INTO `events` (`name`) SELECT `event` FROM `old_data`;

From the MySQL manual:

The identifier quote character is the backtick (“`”):

mysql> SELECT * FROM `select` WHERE `select`.id > 100;

If the ANSI_QUOTES SQL mode is enabled, it is also permissible to quote identifiers within double quotation marks:

mysql> CREATE TABLE "test" (col INT);
ERROR 1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax...
mysql> SET sql_mode='ANSI_QUOTES';
mysql> CREATE TABLE "test" (col INT);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

The ANSI_QUOTES mode causes the server to interpret double-quoted strings as identifiers. Consequently, when this mode is enabled, string literals must be enclosed within single quotation marks. They cannot be enclosed within double quotation marks. The server SQL mode is controlled as described in Section 5.1.6, “Server SQL Modes”.

Identifier quote characters can be included within an identifier if you quote the identifier. If the character to be included within the identifier is the same as that used to quote the identifier itself, then you need to double the character. The following statement creates a table named a`b that contains a column named c"d:

mysql> CREATE TABLE `a``b` (`c"d` INT);

In the select list of a query, a quoted column alias can be specified using identifier or string quoting characters:

mysql> SELECT 1 AS `one`, 2 AS 'two';
+-----+-----+
| one | two |
+-----+-----+
|   1 |   2 |
+-----+-----+

Elsewhere in the statement, quoted references to the alias must use identifier quoting or the reference is treated as a string literal.