INSERT [LOW_PRIORITY] [IGNORE] [INTO] tbl_name [(column list)] SELECT ...

With INSERT ... SELECT , you can quickly insert many rows into a table from one or many tables.

The following conditions hold for an INSERT ... SELECT statement:

• Prior to MySQL 4.0.1, INSERT ... SELECT implicitly operates in IGNORE mode. As of MySQL 4.0.1, you should specify IGNORE explicitly to ignore records that would cause duplicate-key violations.
• Do not use DELAYED with INSERT ... SELECT .
• Prior to MySQL 4.0.14, the target table of the INSERT statement cannot appear in the FROM clause of the SELECT part of the query. This limitation is lifted in 4.0.14.
• AUTO_INCREMENT columns work as usual.
• In C programs, you can use the C API function mysql_info() to get information about the query.
• To ensure that the binary log can be used to re-create the original tables, MySQL will not allow concurrent inserts during INSERT ... SELECT .

You can use REPLACE instead of INSERT to overwrite old rows. REPLACE is the counterpart to INSERT IGNORE in the treatment of new rows that contain unique key values that duplicate old rows: The new rows are used to replace the old rows rather than being discarded.

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