Duplicate / Copy records in the same MySQL table

mysql

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

Duplicate / Copy records in the same MySQL table

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