Possible column values

The VALUES clause accepts only constant values, not general SQL expressions. You can supply the following values:
  • Literal numbers
  • Literal DATETIME values
  • Literal INTERVAL values
  • Quoted strings of characters
  • The word NULL for a NULL value
  • The word TODAY for the current date
  • The word CURRENT (or SYSDATE) for the current date and time
  • The word USER for your authorization identifier
  • The word DBSERVERNAME (or SITENAME) for the name of the computer where the database server is running
Note: An alternative to the INSERT statement is the MERGE statement, which can use the same VALUES clause syntax as the INSERT statement to insert rows into a table. The MERGE statement performs an outer join of a source table and a target table, and then inserts into the target table any rows in the result set of the join for which the join predicate evaluates to FALSE. The source table is unchanged by the MERGE statement. Besides inserting rows, the MERGE statement can optionally combine both DELETE and INSERT operations, or combine both UPDATE and INSERT operations. For more information about the syntax and the restrictions on Insert merges, Delete merges, and Update merges, see the description of the MERGE statement in the Informix® Guide to SQL: Syntax.