3-insertdata.md

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Inserting data into an SQL table

Now that we have a table structure, we can insert some data. Let's make a table of departments in a school.

The syntax for inserting multiple records is:

INSERT INTO table_name (field_name) VALUES (record1), (record2), (record3);

Insert Anthropology, Biology, and Linguistics into the table we just created. Here is the SQL we need:

INSERT INTO programs (program_name) VALUES
("Anthropology"),
("Biology"),
("Linguistics");

Execute that code in the SQLite REPL. Now you have a database table with data in it! But it's all rather abstract without visible evidence, isn't it? In order to visualize our data, we need to change some settings in the SQLite program:

 .mode column
 .headers on

Now add this code:

select * from programs;

Here is the shape of our table:

id          program_name
----------  ------------
1           Anthropology
2           Biology
3           Linguistics

If you see the programs we added to the database, it worked!

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