Inserting data into a column from 2 different tables

Question

Hi,
I need to insert data into a table using 2 other tables. The tables that contain data have identical column names.
Is using a UNION statement the only option?
Also, if I need to insert data into columns from only one of the either tables, how do i do it?
Thanks.

Answer 1

For future reference, "doesn't seem to work" is a rather generic description... Posting the particular error message will be quite helpful, though I'm reasonably confident that I know the particular problem here.
First, if only for sanity, you probably want to explicitly list the columns of the destination table in your INSERT statement.
Second, it doesn't make sense to have DISTINCT clauses in queries that are UNION-ed together. A UNION has to do a sort to remove duplicates already.
Third, the two queries you are UNIONing together have to return the same number of columns, with the same names, in the same order.
You probably want something like
INSERT INTO new_table( col1, col2, col3, col4, col5 )
  SELECT 'ABC'  col1,
         a.colA col2,
         a.colB col3,
         a.colC col4
         a.colD col5
    FROM table1 a
  UNION
  SELECT 'ABC'  col1,
         b.colA col2,
         b.colB col3,
         b.colC col4
         NULL   col5
    FROM table2 bJustin
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