Get Insert Statement for existing row in MySQL

Question

There doesn't seem to be a way to get the INSERT statements from the MySQL console, but you can get them using mysqldump like Rob suggested. Specify -t to omit table creation.

mysqldump -t -u MyUserName -pMyPassword MyDatabase MyTable --where="ID = 10"

In MySQL Workbench you can export the results of any single-table query as a list of INSERT statements. Just run the query, and then:

1. click on the floppy disk near Export/Import above the results
2. give the target file a name
3. at the bottom of the window, for Format select SQL INSERT statements
4. click Save
5. click Export

Since you copied the table with the SQL produced by SHOW CREATE TABLE MyTable, you could just do the following to load the data into the new table.

INSERT INTO dest_db.dest_table SELECT * FROM source_db.source_table;

If you really want the INSERT statements, then the only way that I know of is to use mysqldump http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysqldump.htm. You can give it options to just dump data for a specific table and even limit rows.

I wrote a php function that will do this. I needed to make an insert statement in case a record needs to be replaced after deletion for a history table:

function makeRecoverySQL($table, $id)
{
    // get the record          
    $selectSQL = "SELECT * FROM `" . $table . "` WHERE `id` = " . $id . ';';

    $result = mysql_query($selectSQL, $YourDbHandle);
    $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); 

    $insertSQL = "INSERT INTO `" . $table . "` SET ";
    foreach ($row as $field => $value) {
        $insertSQL .= " `" . $field . "` = '" . $value . "', ";
    }
    $insertSQL = trim($insertSQL, ", ");

    return $insertSQL;
}

Laptop Lift's code works fine, but there were a few things I figured people may like.

Database handler is an argument, not hardcoded. Used the new mysql api. Replaced $id with an optional $where argument for flexibility. Used real_escape_string in case anyone has ever tried to do sql injection and to avoid simple breakages involving quotes. Used the INSERT table (field...) VALUES (value...)... syntax so that the fields are defined only once and then just list off the values of each row (implode is awesome). Because Nigel Johnson pointed it out, I added NULL handling.

I used $array[$key] because I was worried it might somehow change, but unless something is horribly wrong, it shouldn't anyway.

<?php
function show_inserts($mysqli,$table, $where=null) {
    $sql="SELECT * FROM `{$table}`".(is_null($where) ? "" : " WHERE ".$where).";";
    $result=$mysqli->query($sql);

    $fields=array();
    foreach ($result->fetch_fields() as $key=>$value) {
        $fields[$key]="`{$value->name}`";
    }

    $values=array();
    while ($row=$result->fetch_row()) {
        $temp=array();
        foreach ($row as $key=>$value) {
            $temp[$key]=($value===null ? 'NULL' : "'".$mysqli->real_escape_string($value)."'");
        }
        $values[]="(".implode(",",$temp).")";
    }
    $num=$result->num_rows;
    return "INSERT `{$table}` (".implode(",",$fields).") VALUES \n".implode(",\n",$values).";";
}
?>

I use the program SQLYOG where I can make a select query, point at the results and choose export as sql. This gives me the insert statements.