Write & Update Data

1. Data Insertion

1.1 Syntax

In IoTDB, data insertion follows the general syntax:

INSERT INTO <TABLE_NAME> [(COLUMN_NAME[, COLUMN_NAME]*)]? VALUES (COLUMN_VALUE[, COLUMN_VALUE]*)

Basic Constraints:

1. Tables cannot be automatically created using INSERT statements.
2. Columns not specified in the INSERT statement will automatically be filled with null.
3. If no timestamp is provided, the system will use the current time (now()).
4. If a column value does not exist for the identified device, the insertion will overwrite any existing null values with the new data.
5. If a column value already exists for the identified device, a new insertion will update the column with the new value.
6. Writing duplicate timestamps will update the values in the columns corresponding to the original timestamps.
7. When an INSERT statement does not specify column names (e.g., INSERT INTO table VALUES (...)), the values in VALUES must strictly follow the physical order of columns in the table (this order can be checked via the DESC table command).

Since attributes generally do not change over time, it is recommended to update attribute values using the UPDATE statement described below，Please refer to the following Data Update.

1.2 Automatically Create Tables via Session Insertion

When inserting data via the Session API, IoTDB can automatically create table structures based on the data insertion request, eliminating the need for manual table creation.

Example:

try (ITableSession session =
    new TableSessionBuilder()
        .nodeUrls(Collections.singletonList("127.0.0.1:6667"))
        .username("root")
        .password("root")
        .build()) {

  session.executeNonQueryStatement("CREATE DATABASE db1");
  session.executeNonQueryStatement("use db1");

  // Insert data without manually creating the table
  List<String> columnNameList =
      Arrays.asList("region_id", "plant_id", "device_id", "model", "temperature", "humidity");
  List<TSDataType> dataTypeList =
      Arrays.asList(
          TSDataType.STRING,
          TSDataType.STRING,
          TSDataType.STRING,
          TSDataType.STRING,
          TSDataType.FLOAT,
          TSDataType.DOUBLE);
  List<ColumnCategory> columnTypeList =
      new ArrayList<>(
          Arrays.asList(
              ColumnCategory.TAG,
              ColumnCategory.TAG,
              ColumnCategory.TAG,
              ColumnCategory.ATTRIBUTE,
              ColumnCategory.FIELD,
              ColumnCategory.FIELD));
  Tablet tablet = new Tablet("table1", columnNameList, dataTypeList, columnTypeList, 100);
  for (long timestamp = 0; timestamp < 100; timestamp++) {
    int rowIndex = tablet.getRowSize();
    tablet.addTimestamp(rowIndex, timestamp);
    tablet.addValue("region_id", rowIndex, "1");
    tablet.addValue("plant_id", rowIndex, "5");
    tablet.addValue("device_id", rowIndex, "3");
    tablet.addValue("model", rowIndex, "A");
    tablet.addValue("temperature", rowIndex, 37.6F);
    tablet.addValue("humidity", rowIndex, 111.1);
    if (tablet.getRowSize() == tablet.getMaxRowNumber()) {
      session.insert(tablet);
      tablet.reset();
    }
  }
  if (tablet.getRowSize() != 0) {
    session.insert(tablet);
    tablet.reset();
  }
}

After execution, you can verify the table creation using the following command:

IoTDB> desc table1
+-----------+---------+-----------+
| ColumnName| DataType|   Category|
+-----------+---------+-----------+
|       time|TIMESTAMP|       TIME|
|  region_id|   STRING|        TAG|
|   plant_id|   STRING|        TAG|
|  device_id|   STRING|        TAG|
|      model|   STRING|  ATTRIBUTE|
|temperature|    FLOAT|      FIELD|
|   humidity|   DOUBLE|      FIELD|
+-----------+---------+-----------+

1.3 Specified Column Insertion

It is possible to insert data for specific columns. Columns not specified will remain null.

Example:

insert into table1("region", "plant_id", "device_id", Time, "temperature", "displacement") values ('Hamburg', '3001', '3', 4, 90.0, 1200.0)


insert into table1("region", "plant_id", "device_id", Time, "temperature") values ('Hamburg, '3001', '3', 5, 90.0)

1.4 Null Value Insertion

You can explicitly set null values for tag columns, attribute columns, and field columns.

Example:

Equivalent to the above partial column insertion.

# Equivalent to the example above
insert into table1("region", "plant_id", "device_id", "model", "maintenance_cycle", Time, "temperature", "displacement") values ('Hamburg', '3001', '3', null, null, 4, 90.0, 1200.0)

insert into table1("region", "plant_id", "device_id", "model", "maintenance_cycle", Time, "temperature", "displacement") values ('Hamburg', '3001', '3', null, null, 5, 90.0, null)

If no tag columns are included, the system will automatically create a device with all tag column values set to null.

Note: This operation will not only automatically populate existing tag columns in the table with null values but will also populate any newly added tag columns with null values in the future.

1.5 Multi-Row Insertion

IoTDB supports inserting multiple rows of data in a single statement to improve efficiency.

Example:

insert into table1
values
(4, 'Frankfurt', '3001', '3', '1', '10', 90.0, 1200.0)
(5, 'Frankfurt', '3001', '3', '1', '10', 90.0, 1200.0)


insert into table1
("region", "plant_id", "device_id", Time, "temperature", "displacement")
values
('Frankfurt', '3001', '3', 4, 90.0, 1200.0)
('Frankfurt', '3001', '3', 5, 90.0, 1200.0)

Notes

• Referencing non-existent columns in SQL will result in an error code COLUMN_NOT_EXIST(616).
• Data type mismatches between the insertion data and the column's data type will result in an error code DATA_TYPE_MISMATCH(614).

2. Data Updates

2.1 Syntax

UPDATE <TABLE_NAME> SET updateAssignment (',' updateAssignment)* (WHERE where=booleanExpression)?

updateAssignment
    : identifier EQ expression
    ;

Note:

• Updates are allowed only on ATTRIBUTE columns.
• WHERE conditions:
  • Can only include TAG and ATTRIBUTE columns; FIELD and TIME columns are not allowed.
  • Aggregation functions are not supported.
• The result of the SET assignment expression must be a string type and follow the same constraints as the WHERE clause.

Example:

update table1 set b = a where substring(a, 1, 1) like '%'