Can you define "literal" tables in SQL?
I suppose you could do a subquery with several SELECTs combined with UNIONs.
SELECT a, b, c, dFROM ( SELECT 1 AS a, 2 AS b, 3 AS c, 4 AS d UNION ALL SELECT 5 , 6, 7, 8) AS temp;
You can do it in PostgreSQL:
=> select * from (values (1,7), (2,6), (3,13), (4,12), (5,9) ) x(id, count); id | count ----+------- 1 | 7 2 | 6 3 | 13 4 | 12 5 | 9
In standard SQL (SQL 2003 - see http://savage.net.au/SQL/) you can use:
INSERT INTO SomeTable(Id, Count) VALUES (1, 7), (2, 6), (3, 13), ...With a bit more chasing, you can also use:
SELECT * FROM TABLE(VALUES (1,7), (2, 6), (3, 13), ...) AS SomeTable(Id, Count)Whether these work in MySQL is a separate issue - but you can always ask to get it added, or add it yourself (that's the beauty of Open Source).