Question

Is it possible to select from an insert statement? For example:

SELECT id FROM (INSERT INTO table (col1, col2) VALUES (val1, val2));

Where id is an autoincrementing primary key.

Answer 1

It’s not possible in such way, because INSERT doesn’t return virtual table for SELECT. However you could get id’s actual value using currval(regclass) sequence function as:

SELECT currval('yourTableName_id_seq'::regclass);
 currval 
---------
       1
(1 row)

EDIT:

Use RETURNING clause (available since PostgreSQL 8.2):

INSERT INTO yourTableName (col1, col2) VALUES ('aaa', 'bbb') RETURNING id;
 id 
----
  2
(1 row)