Question

I want to transfer all data from one table into another with the following code:

INSERT INTO tblpremier 
   SELECT * INTO #TempTable
   FROM dbo.IntermediateTable

ALTER TABLE #TempTable
DROP COLUMN id

SELECT * FROM #TempTable

And I get an error

Incorrect syntax near the keyword ‘INTO’

at the second line of this code. Any help?.

Answer 1

What you’ve written doesn’t make any sense. The first “statement” is this:

INSERT INTO tblpremier 
SELECT * INTO #TempTable
FROM dbo.IntermediateTable

Now are you inserting into #temptable, or tblpremier? I’m guessing you wanted to perform all these operations and then insert into tblpremier – in which case split it into separate statements. I’m guessing you wanted to do:

SELECT * INTO #TempTable
FROM dbo.IntermediateTable

ALTER TABLE #TempTable
DROP COLUMN id

INSERT INTO tblpremier
SELECT * FROM #TempTable

But rather than need #Temptable which is the same as IntermediateTable minus the ID column, why not just select the correct columns you need from IntermediateTable in the first place rather than using *?

Edit:

Here’s what I meant. Write the insert statement so you’ve got all the column names specified, and don’t include the ID column. You’ll get all new ID numbers on the copy of the table.

INSERT INTO tblpremier (column1, column2, column3, ...)
SELECT column1, column2, column3, ...
FROM IntermediateTable

However, if you wanted to to keep the same ID numbers in the copy of the table, and the columns are in the same order on both intermediate table and tblpremier, then you could write:

SET IDENTITY_INSERT tblpremier ON

INSERT INTO tblpremier
SELECT * 
FROM IntermediateTable

SET IDENTITY_INSERT tblpremier OFF

But you would still need to watch out for trying to insert duplicate IDs if tblpremier isn’t empty at first.