INSERT

Add or update columns.

Synopsis

INSERT INTO keyspace_name.table_name
( column_name, column_name...)
VALUES ( value, value ... )
USING option AND option

identifier is a column or a collection name.

Value is one of:

a literal
a set
```
{ literal, literal, . . . }
```
a list
```
[ literal, literal, . . . ]
```

a map collection, a JSON-style array of literals

{ literal : literal, literal : literal, . . . }

option is one of:

TIMESTAMP microseconds
TTL seconds

Legend
Uppercase means literal Lowercase means not literal Italics mean optional The pipe (\|) symbol means OR or AND/OR Ellipsis (...) means repeatable A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description

An INSERT writes one or more columns to a record in a Cassandra table atomically and in isolation. No results are returned. You do not have to define all columns, except those that make up the key. Missing columns occupy no space on disk.

If the column exists, it is updated. You can qualify table names by keyspace. INSERT does not support counters, but UPDATE does. Internally, the insert and update operation are identical.

Specifying TIMESTAMP and TTL¶

Time-to-live ( TTL ) in seconds
Timestamp in microseconds

INSERT INTO Hollywood.NerdMovies (user_uuid, fan)
  VALUES (cfd66ccc-d857-4e90-b1e5-df98a3d40cd6, 'johndoe')
  USING TTL 86400;

TTL input is in seconds. TTL column values are automatically marked as deleted (with a tombstone) after the requested amount of time has expired. TTL marks the inserted values, not the column itself, for expiration. Any subsequent update of the column resets the TTL to the TTL specified in the update. By default, values never expire.

The TIMESTAMP input is in microseconds. If not specified, the time (in microseconds) that the write occurred to the column is used.

Using a collection set or map

To insert data into the set, enclose values in curly brackets. Set values must be unique. For example:

INSERT INTO users (user_id, first_name, last_name, emails)
  VALUES('frodo', 'Frodo', 'Baggins', {'f@baggins.com', 'baggins@gmail.com'});

Insert a map named todo to insert a reminder, 'die' on October 2 for user frodo.

INSERT INTO users (user_id, todo )
  VALUES('frodo', {'2012-10-2 12:10' : 'die' } );