I can't seem to figure this one and would appreciate some pointers as Im not convinced Im even using the correct command Assume the following basic setup:

------------------------------
| Product_inventory
------------------------------
| Name | Description |
------------------------------
| Item 1 | <p>Blah blah
| Item 2 | <p>Filler content
| Item 3 | <p>Text text
| Item 4 | <p>More random

What I would like to do is automatically copy each rows 'Name' into the 'Description' column to preceed the already existing text. So the Description for Item 1 would read as "Item 1 <p>Blah blah"

I've been playing with the replace command and whilst it allows me to insert text at the beginning of each description I haven't figured out the correct SQL to copy the 'Name' fields (its just printing "Name" instead of the actual product title). This method also doesn't account for a description containing multiple <p>

UPDATE Product_inventory SET `Description` = replace(`Description`, "`Name` <p>", "<p>")

Am I on the right path? Cheers

you can use insert into table from ( select * from other table) this is how I use when I have to move data between two tables

It depends of the db you use, but guessing it's mysql, use the concat() function:

drop table test;
create table test( name varchar(20), description varchar(100));

insert into test values ('item 1','<p> blah');
insert into test values ('item 2','<p>Filler content');
insert into test values ('item 3','<p>Text text');
insert into test values ('item 4','<p>More random');

select * from test;

update test
set description=concat(name,' ',description)

select * from test;

which result into:

mysql> select * from test;
+--------+--------------------------+
| name   | description              |
+--------+--------------------------+
| item 1 | item 1 <p> blah          |
| item 2 | item 2 <p>Filler content |
| item 3 | item 3 <p>Text text      |
| item 4 | item 4 <p>More random    |
+--------+--------------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

For postgresql (and I think oracle too, but I have no oracle instance to test), for example, the command would be

update test
set description=name||' '||description;

and for ms sql server, it would be

update test
set description=name+' '+description;