Question

If I have a table, called Places with several fields, and a primary key placeID, what if the best way to INSERT a new item into the table, such that placeID is autoincremented, but all the other fields are the same as the item with placeID= 001,say.

This is what I am doing

 SELECT* FROM Places WHERE placeID = 001 ... 
 INSERT INTO Places VALUES(...should be values from previous select)

but I can’t quite figure out how to do it.

Answer 1

You just have it backwards, and you need to explicitly name your columns, with every column except placeID in the SELECT list:

INSERT INTO places (col1, col2, col3, col4, every_column_except_placeID)
  SELECT col1, col2, col3, col4, every_column_except_placeID FROM Places WHERE placeID='001'

You should get a new row with placeID auto-incremented.