Copying rows in MySQL

Question

I want to copy all of the columns of a row, but not have to specify every column. I am aware of the syntax at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/insert-select.html but I see no way to ignore a column.

For my example, I am trying to copy all the columns of a row to a new row, except for the primary key.

Is there a way to do that without having to write the query with every field in it?

Answer 1

If you don't specify the columns you have to keep the entries in order. For example:

INSERT INTO `users` (`ID`, `Email`, `UserName`) VALUES
(1, '[e-mail]', 'StackOverflow')

Would work but

INSERT INTO `users` VALUES
('[e-mail]', 'StackOverflow')

would place the Email at the ID column so it's no good.

Try writing the columns once like:

INSERT INTO `users` (`Email`, `UserName`) VALUES
('[e-mail]', 'StackOverflow'),
('[e-mail]', 'StackOverflow2'),
('[e-mail]', 'StackOverflow3'),
etc...

I think there's a limit to how many rows you can insert with that method though.