Postgres CASE Statement in an insert

Question

I have a table that i had to ALTER in Postgres. I would now like to insert some values for the rows that exists in the table based on a condition. I'm looking at using CASE blocks!

Here is what I have:

INSERT INTO MyTable (value1, value2) values
    (1, SELECT t.name,
          CASE WHEN t.name IN ('MyName') THEN 1
          ELSE 2
        END AS value2
       FROM MyTable t);

I get an error:

ERROR: syntax error at or near "select"
SQL state: 42601
Character: 71

Any clues what it is?

Answer 1

OK, this is the insert query with the syntax fixed

 INSERT INTO MyTable (value1, value2) 
        SELECT t.name,
              CASE WHEN t.name IN ('MyName') THEN 1
              ELSE 2
            END AS value2
           FROM MyTable;

If you're trying to change existing rows, you need an update query, eg

-- first update, set value1 to 1 and value2 for all rows
UPDATE MyTable set value1 = 1,value2 = 2;

-- next query. Set value2 = 1 for only those rows matching your criteria
 UPDATE MyTable
    SET value2 = 1 WHERE name IN ('MyName');