VALUES expression

The VALUES expression allows construction of a row or a table from other values. You use a VALUES statement when you do not have a FROM clause. This construct can be used in all the places where a query can, and thus can be used as a statement that returns a ResultSet, within expressions and statements wherever subqueries are permitted, and as the source of values for an INSERT statement.

Syntax

{
    VALUES ( Value {, Value }* )
        [ , ( Value {, Value }* ) ]* |
    VALUES Value [ , Value ]* |
 }

Expression | DEFAULT

The first form constructs multi-column rows. The second form constructs single-column rows, each expression being the value of the column of the row.

The DEFAULT keyword is allowed only if the VALUES expression is in an INSERT statement. Specifying DEFAULT for a column inserts the column's default value into the column. Another way to insert the default value into the column is to omit the column from the column list and only insert values into other columns in the table.

Examples

-- 3 rows of 1 column 
VALUES (1),(2),(3);
 -- 3 rows of 1 column 
VALUES 1, 2, 3; 
 -- 1 row of 3 columns 
VALUES (1, 2, 3);
 -- 3 rows of 2 columns 
VALUES (1,21),(2,22),(3,23);
 -- constructing a derived table 
VALUES ('orange', 'orange'), ('apple', 'red'),
('banana', 'yellow')
 
 -- Insert two new departments using one statement into the DEPARTMENT table, 
-- but do not assign a manager to the new department. 
INSERT INTO DEPARTMENT (DEPTNO, DEPTNAME, ADMRDEPT)
  VALUES ('B11' 'URCHASING' 'B01'),
    ('E41', 'DATABASE ADMINISTRATION', 'E01')
 -- insert a row with a DEFAULT value for the MAJPROJ column 
INSERT INTO PROJECT (PROJNO, PROJNAME, DEPTNO, RESPEMP, PRSTDATE, MAJPROJ) 
VALUES ('PL2101', 'ENSURE COMPAT PLAN', 'B01', '000020', CURRENT_DATE, DEFAULT);
 
 -- using a built-in function 
VALUES CURRENT_DATE
 -- getting the value of an arbitrary expression 
VALUES (3*29, 26.0E0/3)
 -- getting a value returned by a built-in function 
values char(1)