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Databases

Gregory Ledger
Gregory Ledger
6,116 Points

Inserting rows in a table

Noticed that the NULL value was not used in writing the INSERT INTO statement in the adding multiple rows video, while it was used in the previous video. Is the NULL statement really necessary in an auto increment column?

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,248 Points

The default value for a column not explicitly inserted is normally NULL.

So you can usually omit a column entirely in an INSERT statement if your intention is to give it a NULL value (or whatever the default is for the column).

Since auto-increment columns always get a computed value it is common to omit them in an INSERT statement.