Duplicate / Copy records in the same MySQL table

Question

I have been looking for a while now but I can not find an easy solution for my problem. I would like to duplicate a record in a table, but of course, the unique primary key needs to be updated.

I have this query:

INSERT INTO invoices
    SELECT * FROM invoices AS iv WHERE iv.ID=XXXXX
    ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ID = (SELECT MAX(ID)+1 FROM invoices)

the problem is that this just changes the ID of the row instead of copying the row. Does anybody know how to fix this ?

//edit: I would like to do this without typing all the field names because the field names can change over time.

Answer 1

The way that I usually go about it is using a temporary table. It's probably not computationally efficient but it seems to work ok! Here i am duplicating record 99 in its entirety, creating record 100.

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp SELECT * FROM invoices WHERE id = 99;

UPDATE tmp SET id=100 WHERE id = 99;

INSERT INTO invoices SELECT * FROM tmp WHERE id = 100;

Hope that works ok for you!

Answer 2

Alex's answer needs some care (e.g. locking or a transaction) in multi-client environments.

Assuming the AUTO ID field is the first one in the table (a usual case), we can make use of implicit transactions.

    CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp SELECT * from invoices WHERE ...;
    ALTER TABLE tmp drop ID; # drop autoincrement field
    # UPDATE tmp SET ...; # just needed to change other unique keys
    INSERT INTO invoices SELECT 0,tmp.* FROM tmp;
    DROP TABLE tmp;

From the MySQL docs:

Using AUTO_INCREMENT: You can also explicitly assign NULL or 0 to the column to generate sequence numbers.

Answer 3

You KNOW for sure, that the DUPLICATE KEY will trigger, thus you can select the MAX(ID)+1 beforehand:

INSERT INTO invoices SELECT MAX(ID)+1, ... other fields ... FROM invoices AS iv WHERE iv.ID=XXXXX 

Answer 4

A late answer I know, but it still a common question, I would like to add another answer that It worked for me, with only using a single line insert into statement, and I think it is straightforward, without creating any new table (since it could be an issue with CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE permissions):

INSERT INTO invoices (col_1, col_2, col_3, ... etc)
  SELECT
    t.col_1,
    t.col_2,
    t.col_3,
    ...
    t.updated_date,
  FROM invoices t;

The solution is working for AUTO_INCREMENT id column, otherwise, you can add ID column as well to statement:

INSERT INTO invoices (ID, col_1, col_2, col_3, ... etc)
  SELECT
    MAX(ID)+1,
    t.col_1,
    t.col_2,
    t.col_3,
    ... etc ,
  FROM invoices t;

It is really easy and straightforward, you can update anything else in a single line without any second update statement for later, (ex: update a title column with extra text or replacing a string with another), also you can be specific with what exactly you want to duplicate, if all then it is, if some, you can do so.

Answer 5

Your approach is good but the problem is that you use "*" instead enlisting fields names. If you put all the columns names excep primary key your script will work like charm on one or many records.

INSERT INTO invoices (iv.field_name, iv.field_name,iv.field_name
) SELECT iv.field_name, iv.field_name,iv.field_name FROM invoices AS iv     
WHERE iv.ID=XXXXX

Answer 6

I just wanted to extend Alex's great answer to make it appropriate if you happen to want to duplicate an entire set of records:

SET @x=7;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp SELECT * FROM invoices;
UPDATE tmp SET id=id+@x;
INSERT INTO invoices SELECT * FROM tmp;

I just had to do this and found Alex's answer a perfect jumping off point!. Of course, you have to set @x to the highest row number in the table (I'm sure you could grab that with a query). This is only useful in this very specific situation, so be careful using it when you don't wish to duplicate all rows. Adjust the math as necessary.

Answer 7

I have a similar issue, and this is what I'm doing:

insert into Preguntas  (`EncuestaID`, `Tipo` , `Seccion` , `RespuestaID` , `Texto` )  select '23', `Tipo`, `Seccion`, `RespuestaID`, `Texto` from Preguntas where `EncuestaID`= 18

Been Preguntas:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `Preguntas` (
  `ID` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `EncuestaID` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Tipo` char(5) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci DEFAULT NULL,
  `Seccion` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `RespuestaID` bigint(11) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Texto` text COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci ,
  PRIMARY KEY (`ID`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci AUTO_INCREMENT=522 ;

So, the ID is automatically incremented and also I'm using a fixed value ('23') for EncuestaID.

Answer 8

I needed this as well; my solution was to use SQLYOG (free version) to export the desired record as SQL (creates an insert).

I then hand edited this to remove the id as this needs to be auto-generated and then copied the insert into SQLYog to execute it. This was painless. I guess plenty of other MySQL GUIs can do this as well.

This provides me with a record I can use for test purposes on a live system.

I now have this insert for reuse as well, as the table is rewritten daily.

Answer 9

Slight variation, main difference being to set the primary key field ("varname") to null, which produces a warning but works. By setting the primary key to null, the auto-increment works when inserting the record in the last statement.

This code also cleans up previous attempts, and can be run more than once without problems:

DELETE FROM `tbl` WHERE varname="primary key value for new record";
DROP TABLE tmp;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp SELECT * FROM `tbl` WHERE varname="primary key value for old record";
UPDATE tmp SET varname=NULL;
INSERT INTO `tbl` SELECT * FROM tmp;

Answer 10

You can alter the temporarily table to change the ID field to a bigint or so without the NOT NULL requirement, then set the ID to 0 in that temp table. After that add it back to the original table and the NULL will trigger the auto increment.

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmptable SELECT * FROM x WHERE (id='123');
ALTER TABLE tmptable CHANGE id id bigint;
UPDATE tmptable SET id = NULL;
INSERT INTO x SELECT * FROM tmptable;