MySQL INSERT Statement. Free online PHP and MySQL Web Database Programming Tutorial...

We use the INSERT INTO statement to insert new records in a table. It is possible to write INSERT INTO statement in two form. Let's see how:

The first form of INSERT INTO statement doesn't specify the column names where the data is to be inserted, it only specifies their values:

INSERT INTO table_name
VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

The second form of INSERT INTO specifies both; the column names and the values to be inserted, as follows:

INSERT INTO table_name (column1, column2, column3,...)
VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...)

We have to use PHP mysql_query() function to execute the above statements. Here is an example:

Example
The following code inserts two new records in the "Students" table:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost", "adam" ,"ada");
if (!$con)
{
die('Error connecting database');
}
mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);
mysql_query("INSERT INTO Students (Name, Age, Address)
VALUES ('Jacob', '20', 'Jacob Address')");
mysql_query("INSERT INTO Students
VALUES ('Ibrahim', '22', 'Ibrahim Address')");
mysql_close($con);
?>

How to Insert Data From a HTML Form Into a Database?
It is not as difficult as it sounds. It, really, is very simple. The following example creates an HTML form that is then used to insert new record into our "Students" table:

HTML Form (code):
<html>
<body>
<form action="insertData.php" method="post">
Name:<input type="text" name="name" /><br>
Age: <input type="text" name="age" /><br>
Address: <input type="text" name="address" /><br>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

This is how the above HTML would look like in an internet browser:

When a user clicks the submit button, the form data is sent to "insertData.php". The "insertData.php" file then retrieves the values from the form using the PHP $_POST array, connects to the database and inserts into the database the retrieved values.

Here is the code for the "insertData.php" page:

<?php
$con = mysql_connect("localhost", "adam", "ada");
if (!$con)
{
die('Error connecting database');
}
mysql_select_db("my_db", $con);
$sql="INSERT INTO Students (Name, Age, Address)
VALUES
('$_POST[name]', '$_POST[age]', '$_POST[address]')";
if (!mysql_query($sql, $con))
{
die('Error inserting record');
}
echo "Record added successfully ";
mysql_close($con)
?>

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