Postgresql: syntax error at or near "user"

Question

This is probably a simple question, but I've spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out what's wrong.

I'm trying to run a query on a table "user" containing two columns username and id.

INSERT INTO user
   (username, id) 
VALUES
   ("user", 2)

I end up getting this error.

ERROR:  syntax error at or near "user"
LINE 1: INSERT INTO user
                    ^
********** Error **********

ERROR: syntax error at or near "user"
SQL state: 42601
Character: 13

Here is the table creation for reference

-- Table: public."user"

-- DROP TABLE public."user";

CREATE TABLE public."user"
(
    id integer NOT NULL,
    username text COLLATE pg_catalog."default",
    CONSTRAINT user_pkey PRIMARY KEY (id)
)
WITH (
    OIDS = FALSE
)
TABLESPACE pg_default;

ALTER TABLE public."user"
    OWNER to postgres;

Answer 1

In Postgres user is a reserved SQL keyword. You should avoid naming your tables using reserved keywords. As a workaround here, you can place your table name in double quotes when referring to it:

INSERT INTO "user"
   (username, id) 
VALUES
   ('user', 2)

I also switched to using single quotes for string literals. This helps to distinguish the use of double quotes from single ones.