Copying multiple rows into another table as a single row in mysql

Question

I have been searching for an answer to this problem and cant find one

I am using my sql with Drupal on a LAMP stack

first, if this is better in a cron job then let me know

My problem

I have a form module that I must use. It saves the data like:

ID, element_id, group_id, element_value
1            0         1           Name
2            1         1        Address
3            2         1            DOB    etc...

I want to be able to take the element values and put them into 1 row in another table

so I have currently

INSERT INTO new_table (name, street_address,street_address_line_2, city, state, zip,
                       country, dob)
SELECT element_value 
FROM submited_table
WHERE group_id = 'some_group_id'

I am stuck as to how to place the different values in the same row to make a single record.

Can anyone help with with this?

Answer 1

One way to do this is through aggregation:

INSERT INTO new_table (name, address, dob)
    SELECT max(case when element_id = 1 then element_value end) as name,
           max(case when element_id = 2 then element_value end) as address,
           max(case when element_id = 3 then element_value end) as DOB,
           . . .
    FROM submited_table
    WHERE group_id = 'some_group_id';

This assumes that element_id is identifying what each row in the first table refers to. It also assumes that each element value corresponds to a column in the target table.