mysql prepared statement set default value for insert - mysql

Question

I've got a table with two columns that links a row id from one table to a row id of another, basically I need to be able to insert multiple rows on this table where one column is a fixed value for the insert and the other changes. The insert is done in php using prepared statements and there is an unknown number of rows to be inserted (I've solved this part using call_user_func_array).
Here is an example of what I need to do:
example_table (column_A, column_B)
The insert:
INSERT INTO example_table (column_A, column_B) VALUES(a, b), VALUES(a, c), VALUES(a, d);
Translated to prepared statement:
INSERT INTO example_table (column_A, column_B) VALUES(?, ?), VALUES(?, ?), VALUES(?, ?);
values on bind_param:
('ssssss', 'a', 'b', 'a', 'c', 'a', 'd')
As you can see the repetition of 'a'. is there a way to store 'a' and default it to column_A for the current insert only?
example of what i would like to do on bind_param:
('ssss', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
Where 'a' above is used for column_A on all rows inserted (3 rows in the example). Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

No, it's not possible to "alias" a value multiple times. Each placeholder is unique and must be bound to exactly one value. (It is not even possible to do this reliably with named parameters in PDO.)
If automatically building SQL dynamically (with placeholders) and associated data array, then there is no issue with such "duplication" as it's already handled by the generator.
If transactions are correctly used - which they should be anyway! - then simply calling INSERT in a loop, once for each pair, will likely have similar performance. This avoids needing to build the dynamic SQL (with placeholders) itself, but can increase latency as each command needs to round-trip to the SQL server.
If finding a bunch of such repetition, it might be time to use a Data Access Layer to hind such details; write it, test it, move onto something interesting.
In response to the comment about using SQL variables:
While the following will not improve performance, excepting possibly for ridiculously large values of #v, and makes the code more difficult to understand - it ought to be possible to use user-defined variables in a single insert statement. For instance, consider:
INSERT INTO t VALUES (#v := ?, ?), (#v, ?), (#v, ?)
This is "valid" in MySQL (and is also MySQL-specific), where the placeholders are valid expressions; if it works will depend on how/if such a binding is allowed in a prepared statement.

Answer 2

You may try making a temporary table:
$query='CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tempTable(column_B VARCHAR(50));';
$mysqli->query($query);
then insert unique values of column_B into this table
and finally
$query="INSERT INTO example_table (column_A, column_B) select $a , column_B from tempTable";
$mysqli->query($query);