make a temporary table and select from it

I like to use heredoc to help me construct embedded sql query (just to help make any subtle error glaring); so your first query would look something like this:

$maketemp =<<<s
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp(
`itineraryId` int NOT NULL,
`live` varchar(1), 
`shipCode` varchar(10),
`description` text,
`duration` varchar(10),
PRIMARY KEY(itineraryId));
s;

Then if you want to correct the 2nd query without listing the fields of the table you want to insert the records, you have to list the fields in the same order.

Just the query this time:

INSERT INTO temp
SELECT id, live, ship, description, duration
FROM cruises
WHERE live = 'y';

And last thing about temporary variable is this: Check out the part about its visibility. You can use the TEMPORARY keyword when creating a table. A TEMPORARY table is visible only to the current connection, and is dropped automatically when the connection is closed. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/create-table.html

What that means is this: when you're connected to MySQL directly, e.g. through a command line interface like this:

mysql> #our query here line-by-line

Then you're essentially on the same connection through all of your multiple queries as long as your session is active.

But in an external script (like PHP, for example), just because it's on the same script file doesn't necessarily mean it's the same connection so that by the time you execute your insert query, your temp table is not visible to that connection session.

Try to concat all the queries, send it all within a single command/query execution.

Good luck.

Please, don't use mysql_* functions in new code. They are no longer maintained and are officially deprecated. See the red box? Learn about prepared statements instead, and use PDO or MySQLi - this article will help you decide which. If you choose PDO, here is a good tutorial.

---

This code should work:

<?php

  $maketemp = "
    CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp_table_1 (
      `itineraryId` int NOT NULL,
      `live` varchar(1),
      `shipCode` varchar(10),
      `description` text,
      `duration` varchar(10),
      PRIMARY KEY(itineraryId)
    )
  "; 

  mysql_query($maketemp, $connection) or die ("Sql error : ".mysql_error());

  $inserttemp = "
    INSERT INTO temp_table_1
      (`itineraryId`, `live`, `shipCode`, `description`, `duration`)
    SELECT `id`, `live`, `ship`, `description`, `duration`
    FROM `cruises`
    WHERE `live` = 'Y'
  ";

  mysql_query($inserttemp, $connection) or die ("Sql error : ".mysql_error());

  $select = "
    SELECT `itineraryId`, `shipCode`, `description`, `duration`
    FROM temp_table_1
  ";
  $export = mysql_query($select, $connection) or die ("Sql error : ".mysql_error());

I guess you are going to do more stuff with the temporary table, or are just playing with it, but if not be aware that the whole code could be summed up with:

<?php

  $query = "
    SELECT `id` AS 'itineraryId', `ship`, `description`, `duration`
    FROM `cruises`
    WHERE `live` = 'Y'
  ";
  $export = mysql_query($query, $connection) or die ("Sql error : ".mysql_error());

The second query is not correct.

From the reference -

MySQL Server doesn't support the SELECT ... INTO TABLE Sybase SQL extension. Instead, MySQL Server supports the INSERT INTO ... SELECT. standard SQL syntax, which is basically the same thing.

Try this one instead -

INSERT INTO temp
SELECT live
     , id AS itineraryId
     , ship AS shipCode
     , description AS description
     , duration AS length
FROM
  cruises
WHERE
  live = 'Y'