Re: Subquery in INSERT?

[Richard Broersma Jr <rabroersma(at)yahoo(dot)com>]

> What I'm trying to do is copy a value from one column to another in the same 
> table. The table looks like this:
> 
>   first | second
> ---------------------
> 1      |
> 2      |
> 3      |
> 4      |
> ...
> 
> It's named 'copier'.
> 
> The first column is sequence-generated, and the second has yet to have 
> anything loaded (at this stage it's only a test table). So what I'm trying 
> to do is quick copy of '1' from 'first' to 'second' with this query:
> 
> INSERT INTO copier VALUES(nextval('sequence'), ((SELECT first FROM copier 
> WHERE copier.first=1) AS second));
> 
> ...and I'm getting this error:
> ERROR: syntax error at or near "AS" at character 93
> 
> So what I want to know is, is it possible? If it is and my query is 
> incorrect and anyone can tell me what's wrong with it that would be great.

INSERT adds new rows to a table.  It will not copy a value from one column to another. The UPDATE
statement can do this however.

UPDATE table set second = first;

Regards,

Richard Broersma Jr.