inserting array into database table in single query

Question

iam having an array of items like

[item1,itmem2,item3];

i have to insert these items at a particular userId:

final results look like this

UserId ItemId

2   ||  item1 
2   ||  item2
2   ||  item3

currently iam looping through the array in php code and inserting each item one by one eg

foreach($items as $item)
{
insert into items (UserId,ItemId) value  (2,$item);
}

is it possible i can insert all entries in single query.

Answer 1

Yes, your query could look like this:

INSERT INTO items (UserId,ItemId)
VALUES
(2, 'item1'),
(2, 'item2'),
(2, 'item3');

You can construct that string in PHP.

Answer 2

You can pre build the query like so:

$query = "";
foreach($items as $item)
{
  $query .= "insert into items (UserId,ItemId) value  (2,$item);";
}

Most databases allow you to issue multiple commands if you separate each with a semicolon.

Answer 3

// Prepare the items to be inserted
foreach($items as $item)
{
   $sString .= '(2,' . $item.'),';
}

// Remove the last char comma from the built string
$sString = substr($sString,0,-1);

$sqlQuery = "INSERT INTO items (UserId,ItemId) VALUES" . $sString;
mysql_query($sqlQuery);

Answer 4

Implode is perfect for this..

foreach($items as $item){
   $items[] = '(2,' . $item.')';
}

$q = "INSERT INTO items (userID, itemID) VALUES " . implode(', ', $items);
mysql_query($q);

See - http://php.net/manual/en/function.implode.php