Inserting Data in temp table from Another table

Sometime when we update certain table, its always a good idea to save the entire data into another temporary table which will hold unless we delete that temp table.

Let's say we are working on a Employees table and we need to manually update certain rows or columns for this table.

To do so, let's back them up somewhere for our reference (incase we mess up whole table..I have done few times in beginning!!)


Select * INTO tmpEmployees
FROM Employees

This statement will create a table "tmpEmployees" which will have same structure as  Employees table.


Even we when we close current session, this table will remain there in our database.


However, if you do not want to retain your temp table after you are done with you update, you can create #tmp table


Select * INTO #tmpEmployees
FROM EMPLOYEES


If table already exist, than we have to use this


INSERT INTO #tmpEmployees 
Select * FROM Employees


:Kumar