Insert multiple rows with one query MySQL

 INSERT INTO table (a,b) VALUES (1,2), (2,3), (3,4);

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/insert.html

While inserting multiple rows with a single INSERT statement is generally faster, it leads to a more complicated and often unsafe code. Below I present the best practices when it comes to inserting multiple records in one go using PHP.

To insert multiple new rows into the database at the same time, one needs to follow the following 3 steps:

1. Start transaction (disable autocommit mode)
2. Prepare INSERT statement
3. Execute it multiple times

Using database transactions ensures that the data is saved in one piece and significantly improves performance.

How to properly insert multiple rows using PDO

PDO is the most common choice of database extension in PHP and inserting multiple records with PDO is quite simple.

$pdo = new \PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test;charset=utf8mb4", 'user', 'password', [
    \PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => \PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
    \PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => false
]);

// Start transaction
$pdo->beginTransaction();

// Prepare statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('INSERT 
    INTO `pxlot` (realname,email,address,phone,status,regtime,ip) 
    VALUES (?,?,?,?,?,?,?)');

// Perform execute() inside a loop
// Sample data coming from a fictitious data set, but the data can come from anywhere
foreach ($dataSet as $data) {
    // All seven parameters are passed into the execute() in a form of an array
    $stmt->execute([$data['name'], $data['email'], $data['address'], getPhoneNo($data['name']), '0', $data['regtime'], $data['ip']]);
}

// Commit the data into the database
$pdo->commit();

How to properly insert multiple rows using mysqli

The mysqli extension is a little bit more cumbersome to use but operates on very similar principles. The function names are different and take slightly different parameters.

mysqli_report(MYSQLI_REPORT_ERROR | MYSQLI_REPORT_STRICT);
$mysqli = new \mysqli('localhost', 'user', 'password', 'database');
$mysqli->set_charset('utf8mb4');

// Start transaction
$mysqli->begin_transaction();

// Prepare statement
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare('INSERT 
    INTO `pxlot` (realname,email,address,phone,status,regtime,ip) 
    VALUES (?,?,?,?,?,?,?)');

// Perform execute() inside a loop
// Sample data coming from a fictitious data set, but the data can come from anywhere
foreach ($dataSet as $data) {
    // mysqli doesn't accept bind in execute yet, so we have to bind the data first
    // The first argument is a list of letters denoting types of parameters. It's best to use 's' for all unless you need a specific type
    // bind_param doesn't accept an array so we need to unpack it first using '...'
    $stmt->bind_param('sssssss', ...[$data['name'], $data['email'], $data['address'], getPhoneNo($data['name']), '0', $data['regtime'], $data['ip']]);
    $stmt->execute();
}

// Commit the data into the database
$mysqli->commit();

Performance

Both extensions offer the ability to use transactions. Executing prepared statement with transactions greatly improves performance, but it's still not as good as a single SQL query. However, the difference is so negligible that for the sake of conciseness and clean code it is perfectly acceptable to execute prepared statements multiple times. If you need a faster option to insert many records into the database at once, then chances are that PHP is not the right tool.

In most cases inserting multiple records with one Insert statement is much faster in MySQL than inserting records with for/foreach loop in PHP.

Let's assume $column1 and $column2 are arrays with same size posted by html form.

You can create your query like this:

<?php
    $query = 'INSERT INTO TABLE (`column1`, `column2`) VALUES ';
    $query_parts = array();
    for($x=0; $x<count($column1); $x++){
        $query_parts[] = "('" . $column1[$x] . "', '" . $column2[$x] . "')";
    }
    echo $query .= implode(',', $query_parts);
?>

If data is posted for two records the query will become:

INSERT INTO TABLE (column1, column2) VALUES ('data', 'data'), ('data', 'data')

Here are a few ways to do it

INSERT INTO pxlot (realname,email,address,phone,status,regtime,ip) 
select '$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip' 
from SOMETABLEWITHTONSOFROWS LIMIT 3;

or

INSERT INTO pxlot (realname,email,address,phone,status,regtime,ip) 
select '$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip'
union all select '$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip'
union all select '$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip'

or

INSERT INTO pxlot (realname,email,address,phone,status,regtime,ip) 
values ('$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip')
,('$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip')
,('$realname','$email','$address','$phone','0','$dateTime','$ip')