PHP MySQL: Insert Data Into a Table

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use PHP PDO to insert data into a MySQL table.

We will use the tasks table that we created in the PHP MySQL create table tutorial. If you have not yet created the tasks table, please follow the tutorial and create it before going forward with this tutorial.

The following picture illustrates the tasks table:

To insert data into a table, you follow the steps below:

• Connect to the MySQL database by creating a new instance of the PDO object.
• Construct a MySQL INSERT statement.
• Call exec()  method of the PDO object.

PHP MySQL Insert data examples

PHP MySQL: insert a new row into a table example

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<?php class InsertDataDemo {     const DB_HOST = 'localhost';     const DB_NAME = 'classicmodels';     const DB_USER = 'root';     const DB_PASSWORD = '';     private $pdo = null;     /**      * Open the database connection      */     public function __construct() {         // open database connection         $conStr = sprintf("mysql:host=%s;dbname=%s", self::DB_HOST, self::DB_NAME);         try {             $this->pdo = new PDO($conStr, self::DB_USER, self::DB_PASSWORD);         } catch (PDOException $pe) {             die($pe->getMessage());         }     } //...

The following example illustrates how to insert a new row into the tasks table.

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/**      * Insert a row into a table      * @return      */     public function insert() {         $sql = "INSERT INTO tasks (                       subject,                       description,                       start_date,                       end_date                   )                   VALUES (                       'Learn PHP MySQL Insert Dat',                       'PHP MySQL Insert data into a table',                       '2013-01-01',                       '2013-01-01'                   )";         return $this->pdo->exec($sql);     }

We defined the InsertDataDemo class with a constructor that establishes the database connection and a destructor that closes the database connection. Please refer to the PHP MySQL create table tutorial for the code these methods.

Inside the InsertDataDemo class, we define a the insert method that calls the exec()  method of the PDO object  to execute the INSERT statement.

The following statement creates an instance of the InsertDataDemo class and calls the insert() method to insert a new row into the tasks table.

1 2	$obj = new InsertDataDemo(); $obj->insert();

Let’s query the data in the tasks table:

1 2	SELECT *   FROM tasks;

PHP MySQL: insert a single row using prepared statement example

To pass values from PHP to SQL statement dynamically and securely, you use the PDO prepared statement.

First, use MySQL statement with named placeholders as follows:

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$sql = 'INSERT INTO tasks (                       subject,                       description,                       start_date,                       end_date                   )                   VALUES (                       :subject,                       :description,                       :start_date,                       :end_date                   );';

The :subject, :description, :startdate and :enddate are called named placeholders.

Second, call the prepare()  method of the PDO object to prepare the SQL statement for the execution:

1	$q = $pdo->prepare($sql);

Third, call the execute()  method and pass an array that contains the values which are corresponding to the named placeholders.

1	$q->execute($task)

Putting it all together.

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/**      * Insert a new task into the tasks table      * @param string $subject      * @param string $description      * @param string $startDate      * @param string $endDate      * @return mixed returns false on failure      */     function insertSingleRow($subject, $description, $startDate, $endDate) {         $task = array(':subject' => $subject,             ':description' => $description,             ':start_date' => $startDate,             ':end_date' => $endDate);         $sql = 'INSERT INTO tasks (                       subject,                       description,                       start_date,                       end_date                   )                   VALUES (                       :subject,                       :description,                       :start_date,                       :end_date                   );';         $q = $this->pdo->prepare($sql);         return $q->execute($task);     }

Now we can pass the task’s data to the insertSingleRow() method:

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$obj->insertSingleRow('MySQL PHP Insert Tutorial',                           'MySQL PHP Insert using prepared statement',                           '2013-01-01',                           '2013-01-02');

Le’ts check the tasks table:

PHP MySQL Insert multiple rows into a table example

There are two ways to insert multiple rows into a table:

• Execute the insertSingleRow()  method multiple times.
• Construct a MySQL INSERT statement that inserts multiple rows and executes it.

Download

You can download the source code of this tutorial via the following link:

Download PHP MySQL Insert Source Code

In this tutorial, you have learned how to insert data into a MySQL table using PHP PDO prepared statement.