Insert data into postgres using bash

January 3, 2024

I’m trying to insert values into postgres using bash. During my searching, I did find this:

Inserting data into postgres db using shell script

The script I wrote is not working, and giving the following errors:

ERROR: column "task does not exist
LINE 1: INSERT INTO my_table (task,date,quad,branch) VALUES (task,2024-0...
                                                             ^
HINT:  There is a column named "task" in table "my_table", but it cannot be referenced from this part of the query.

My script is here:

#!/bin/bash
server=my_server
database=postgres
user=my_user

taskInput="task"
dateInput="2024-01-03"
quadinput="input_quad"
branchInput="shipping"
psql -U $user -w -h $server -p 5432 -d $database -c  "INSERT INTO my_table (task,date,quad,branch) VALUES ($taskInput,$dateInput,$quadInput,$branchInput)"

I’m not sure what’s going on, and hoping you smart people can enlighten me.

>Solution :

Because you’re building the SQL string yourself (and not using a library), you must provide quotes around strings:

psql -U $user -w -h $server -p 5432 -d $database -c "INSERT INTO my_table (task,date,quad,branch) VALUES ('$taskInput','$dateInput','$quadInput','$branchInput')"