Insert multiple rows WITHOUT repeating the "INSERT INTO ..." part of the statement?

I know I've done this before years ago, but I can't remember the syntax, and I can't find it anywhere due to pulling up tons of help docs and articles about "bulk imports".

Here's what I want to do, but the syntax is not exactly right... please, someone who has done this before, help me out :)

INSERT INTO dbo.MyTable (ID, Name)
VALUES (123, 'Timmy'),
    (124, 'Jonny'),
    (125, 'Sally')

I know that this is close to the right syntax. I might need the word "BULK" in there, or something, I can't remember. Any idea?

I need this for a SQL Server 2005 database. I've tried this code, to no avail:

DECLARE @blah TABLE
(
    ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
    Name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL
)

INSERT INTO @blah (ID, Name)
    VALUES (123, 'Timmy')
    VALUES (124, 'Jonny')
    VALUES (125, 'Sally')

SELECT * FROM @blah

I'm getting Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'VALUES'.


Solution 1:

Your syntax almost works in SQL Server 2008 (but not in SQL Server 20051):

CREATE TABLE MyTable (id int, name char(10));

INSERT INTO MyTable (id, name) VALUES (1, 'Bob'), (2, 'Peter'), (3, 'Joe');

SELECT * FROM MyTable;

id |  name
---+---------
1  |  Bob       
2  |  Peter     
3  |  Joe       

1 When the question was answered, it was not made evident that the question was referring to SQL Server 2005. I am leaving this answer here, since I believe it is still relevant.

Solution 2:

INSERT INTO dbo.MyTable (ID, Name)
SELECT 123, 'Timmy'
UNION ALL
SELECT 124, 'Jonny'
UNION ALL
SELECT 125, 'Sally'

For SQL Server 2008, can do it in one VALUES clause exactly as per the statement in your question (you just need to add a comma to separate each values statement)...

Solution 3:

If your data is already in your database you can do:

INSERT INTO MyTable(ID, Name)
SELECT ID, NAME FROM OtherTable

If you need to hard code the data then SQL 2008 and later versions let you do the following...

INSERT INTO MyTable (Name, ID)
VALUES ('First',1),
('Second',2),
('Third',3),
('Fourth',4),
('Fifth',5)