using SELECT INTO with multiple rows

Question

This is re I want to create a table using the results of a query by utilizing SELECT INTO. The syntax

SELECT *
INTO Persons_Backup
FROM Persons

is very close to what I want to achieve, with the difference being that I want the FROM to use a query as source.

My situation is a bit more complicated than these simple examples.

I need to create a table and insert multiple rows at the same time. If I could (I can't) use a previously created table the statement would look like this:

INSERT INTO Person_Backup12 (Col1, Col2, Col3)
Select 1, 'a','2001-01-01 12:00'
UNION ALL
Select 83, 'z','2011-09-30 13:27'
UNION ALL
Select 777, 'k','1997-04-25 09:27'

Can I do that while creating a table at the same time?

Answer 1

You can put your query into a common table expression or derived table then SELECT ... INTO from that.

;WITH cte (Col1, Col2, Col3) AS
(
Select 1, 'a','2001-01-01 12:00'
UNION ALL
Select 83, 'z','2011-09-30 13:27'
UNION ALL
Select 777, 'k','1997-04-25 09:27'
)
SELECT *
INTO NewTable
FROM cte

In this case you would probably need some explicit casts to get the desired column datatype (datetime rather than char etc.)

Answer 2

A CTE shouldn't be necessary:

Select 1 as 'Col1', 'a' as 'Col2','2001-01-01 12:00' as 'Col3'
INTO Person_Backup12
UNION ALL
Select 83, 'z','2011-09-30 13:27'
UNION ALL
Select 777, 'k','1997-04-25 09:27'

Worked fine for me in 2008 r2.