Rich Shepard <rshepard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Thu, 1 Nov 2018, Adrian Klaver wrote: > >>> alter table stations add column start_date date; >>> alter table stations add column end_date date; >>> alter table stations add column howmany integer; >>> alter table stations add column bin_col char(8); >>> >>> insert into stations (start_date, end_date, howmany, bin_col) values ( ) >>> select site_nbr from stations >>> where site_nbr = ' '; > >> Are you trying to add new data to existing records? > > Adrian, > > I am adding four columns to an existing table that already contains four > columns. > >> If so where is the new data coming from? > > I have a text file and will fill each insert statement by hand if there's > not a more efficient way to do this. > > Regards, > > Rich Like others, I'm not clear on exactly what your after here, but did want to point out 1. If your doing it by hand, you don't have to do a separate 'full' insert statement for every row i.e. insert into blah (x, y, z) values (....), (....), (....), .... (...); is valid syntax. You don't need to do a full "insert into blah (....) values (...)" for each insert. 2. If it really is an insert you want to do and you already have the data in a file e.g. CSV or similar, then you can use the \copy command to process the file, which is very fast. 3. Is it really insert or update you need? -- Tim Cross
