Insert Entity

  • 6 minutes to read
  • Contributors
    • Tamra Myers
    • Rebecca Agiewich
    • David Matson
    • Robin Shahan

The Insert Entity operation inserts a new entity into a table.

Request

The Insert Entity request may be constructed as follows. HTTPS is recommended. Replace myaccount with the name of your storage account, and mytable with the name of your table:

Method Request URI HTTP Version
POST https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/mytable HTTP/1.1

Emulated Storage Service URI

When making a request against the emulated storage service, specify the emulator hostname and Table service port as 127.0.0.1:10002, followed by the emulated storage account name:

Method Request URI HTTP Version
POST http://127.0.0.1:10002/devstoreaccount1/mytable HTTP/1.1

The Table service in the storage emulator differs from the Windows® Azure™ Table service in several ways. For more information, see Differences Between the Storage Emulator and Azure Storage Services.

URI Parameters

The following additional parameters may be specified on the request URI.

Parameter Description
timeout Optional. The timeout parameter is expressed in seconds. For more information, see Setting Timeouts for Table Service Operations.

Request Headers

The following table describes required and optional request headers.

Request header Description
Authorization Required. Specifies the authentication scheme, account name, and signature. For more information, see Authentication for the Azure Storage Services.
Date or x-ms-date Required. Specifies the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for the request. For more information, see Authentication for the Azure Storage Services.
x-ms-version Optional. Specifies the version of the operation to use for this request. For more information, see Versioning for the Azure Storage Services.
Content-Type Required. Specifies the content type of the payload. Possible values are application/atom+xml (versions prior to 2015-12-11 only) and application/json.

For more formation about valid content types, see Payload Format for Table Service Operations.
Content-Length Required. The length of the request body.
Accept Optional. Specifies the accepted content-type of the response payload. Possible values are:

- application/atom+xml (versions prior to 2015-12-11 only)
- application/json;odata=nometadata
- application/json;odata=minimalmetadata
- application/json;odata=fullmetadata

For more information, see Payload Format for Table Service Operations.
Prefer Optional. Specifies whether the response should include the inserted entity in the payload. Possible values are return-no-content and return-content. For more information, see Setting the Prefer Header to Manage Response Echo on Insert Operations.
x-ms-client-request-id Optional. Provides a client-generated, opaque value with a 1 KB character limit that is recorded in the analytics logs when storage analytics logging is enabled. Using this header is highly recommended for correlating client-side activities with requests received by the server. For more information, see About Storage Analytics Logging and Azure Logging: Using Logs to Track Storage Requests.

Request Body

The Insert Entity operation sends the entity to be inserted as an OData entity, which is either a JSON or an Atom feed. For more information, see Inserting and Updating Entities.

Note

JSON is the recommended payload format, and is the only format supported for versions 2015-12-11 and later.

JSON (versions 2013-08-15 and later)

Here is a sample JSON request body for Insert Entity operation: 

{  
   "Address":"Mountain View",  
   "Age":23,  
   "AmountDue":200.23,  
   "CustomerCode@odata.type":"Edm.Guid",  
   "CustomerCode":"c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833",  
   "CustomerSince@odata.type":"Edm.DateTime",  
   "CustomerSince":"2008-07-10T00:00:00",  
   "IsActive":true,  
   "NumberOfOrders@odata.type":"Edm.Int64",  
   "NumberOfOrders":"255",  
   "PartitionKey":"mypartitionkey",  
   "RowKey":"myrowkey"  
}

Atom Feed (versions prior to 2015-12-11)

Here is a sample Atom request body for the Insert Entity operation. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>  
<entry xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">  
  <title />  
  <updated>2013-09-18T23:46:19.3857256Z</updated>  
  <author>  
    <name />  
  </author>  
  <id />  
  <content type="application/xml">  
    <m:properties>  
      <d:Address>Mountain View</d:Address>  
      <d:Age m:type="Edm.Int32">23</d:Age>  
      <d:AmountDue m:type="Edm.Double">200.23</d:AmountDue>  
      <d:BinaryData m:type="Edm.Binary" m:null="true" />  
      <d:CustomerCode m:type="Edm.Guid">c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833</d:CustomerCode>  
      <d:CustomerSince m:type="Edm.DateTime">2008-07-10T00:00:00</d:CustomerSince>  
      <d:IsActive m:type="Edm.Boolean">true</d:IsActive>  
      <d:NumOfOrders m:type="Edm.Int64">255</d:NumOfOrders>  
      <d:PartitionKey>mypartitionkey</d:PartitionKey>  
      <d:RowKey>myrowkey1</d:RowKey>  
    </m:properties>  
  </content>  
</entry>

Response

The response includes an HTTP status code, a set of response headers, and a response body.

Status Code

The status code depends on the value of the Prefer header. If the Prefer header is set to return-no-content, then a successful operation returns status code 204 (No Content). If the Prefer header is not specified or if it is set to return-content, then a successful operation returns status code 201 (Created). For more information, see Setting the Prefer Header to Manage Response Echo on Insert Operations.

For information about status codes, see Status and Error Codes and Table Service Error Codes.

Response Headers

The response includes the following headers. The response may also include additional standard HTTP headers. All standard headers conform to the HTTP/1.1 protocol specification.

Response header Description
x-ms-request-id This header uniquely identifies the request that was made and can be used for troubleshooting the request. For more information, see Troubleshooting API Operations.
x-ms-version Indicates the version of the Table service used to execute the request. This header is returned for requests made against version 2009-09-19 and later.
Date A UTC date/time value generated by the service that indicates the time at which the response was initiated.
ETag The ETag for the entity.
Preference-Applied Indicates whether the Prefer request header was honored. If the response does not include this header, then the Prefer header was not honored. If this header is returned, its value will either be return-content or return-no-content.

For more information, see Setting the Prefer Header to Manage Response Echo on Insert Operations.
Content-Type Indicates the content type of the payload. The value depends on the value specified for the Accept request header. Possible values are:

- application/atom+xml
- application/json;odata=nometadata
- application/json;odata=minimalmetadata
- application/json;odata=fullmetadata

For more information about content types, see Payload Format for Table Service Operations.

Response Body

If the request includes the Prefer header with the value return-no-content, no response body is returned. Otherwise, the response body is an OData entity set.

Note

JSON is the recommended payload format, and is the only format supported for versions 2015-12-11 and later.

JSON (versions 2013-08-15 and later)

Here is a sample JSON response for each metadata level:

No metadata: 

{  
   "PartitionKey":"mypartitionkey",  
   "RowKey":"myrowkey",  
   "Timestamp":"2013-08-22T01:12:06.2608595Z",  
   "Address":"Mountain View",  
   "Age":23,  
   "AmountDue":200.23,  
   "CustomerCode":"c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833",  
   "CustomerSince":"2008-07-10T00:00:00",  
   "IsActive":true,  
   "NumberOfOrders":"255"  
}

Minimal metadata: 

{  
   "odata.metadata":"https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/Customer/$metadata#Customers/@Element",  
   "PartitionKey":"mypartitionkey",  
   "RowKey":"myrowkey",  
   "Timestamp":"2013-08-22T01:12:06.2608595Z",  
   "Address":"Mountain View",  
   "Age":23,  
   "AmountDue":200.23,  
   "CustomerCode@odata.type":"Edm.Guid",  
   "CustomerCode":"c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833",  
   "CustomerSince@odata.type":"Edm.DateTime",  
   "CustomerSince":"2008-07-10T00:00:00",  
   "IsActive":true,  
   "NumberOfOrders@odata.type":"Edm.Int64",  
   "NumberOfOrders":"255"  
}

Full metadata: 

{  
   "odata.metadata":"https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/Customer/$metadata#Customers/@Element",  
   "odata.type":"myaccount.Customers",  
   "odata.id":" https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/Customers(PartitionKey='mypartitionkey',RowKey='myrowkey')",  
   "odata.etag":"W/\"0x5B168C7B6E589D2\"",  
   "odata.editLink":"Customers(PartitionKey='mypartitionkey',RowKey='myrowkey')",  
   "PartitionKey":"mypartitionkey",  
   "RowKey":"myrowkey",  
   "Timestamp@odata.type":"Edm.DateTime",  
   "Timestamp":"2013-08-22T01:12:06.2608595Z",  
   "Address":"Mountain View",  
   "Age":23,  
   "AmountDue":200.23,  
   "CustomerCode@odata.type":"Edm.Guid",  
   "CustomerCode":"c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833",  
   "CustomerSince@odata.type":"Edm.DateTime",  
   "CustomerSince":"2008-07-10T00:00:00",  
   "IsActive":true,  
   "NumberOfOrders@odata.type":"Edm.Int64",  
   "NumberOfOrders":"255"  
}

Atom Feed (versions prior to 2015-12-11)

Here is a sample Atom response body for the Insert Entity operation. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>  
<entry xml:base="https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" m:etag="W/"0x5B168C7B6E589D2"" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">  
  <id>https://myaccount.table.core.windows.net/mytable(PartitionKey='mypartitionkey',RowKey='myrowkey1')</id>  
  <title type="text"></title>  
  <updated>2008-09-18T23:46:19.3857256Z</updated>  
  <author>  
    <name />  
  </author>  
  <link rel="edit" title="mytable" href="mytable(PartitionKey='mypartitionkey',RowKey='myrowkey1')" />  
  <category term="myaccount.Tables" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme" />  
  <content type="application/xml">  
    <m:properties>  
      <d:PartitionKey>mypartitionkey</d:PartitionKey>  
      <d:RowKey>myrowkey1</d:RowKey>  
      <d:Timestamp m:type="Edm.DateTime">2008-09-18T23:46:19.4277424Z</d:Timestamp>  
      <d:Address>Mountain View</d:Address>  
      <d:Age m:type="Edm.Int32">23</d:Age>  
      <d:AmountDue m:type="Edm.Double">200.23</d:AmountDue>  
      <d:CustomerCode m:type="Edm.Guid">c9da6455-213d-42c9-9a79-3e9149a57833</d:CustomerCode>  
      <d:CustomerSince m:type="Edm.DateTime">2008-07-10T00:00:00</d:CustomerSince>  
      <d:IsActive m:type="Edm.Boolean">true</d:IsActive>  
      <d:NumOfOrders m:type="Edm.Int64">255</d:NumOfOrders>  
    </m:properties>  
  </content>  
</entry>

Authorization

This operation can be performed by the account owner and by anyone with a shared access signature that has permission to perform this operation.

Remarks

When inserting an entity into a table, you must specify values for the PartitionKey and RowKey system properties. Together, these properties form the primary key and must be unique within the table.

Both the PartitionKey and RowKey values must be string values; each key value may be up to 64 KB in size. If you are using an integer value for the key value, you should convert the integer to a fixed-width string, because they are canonically sorted. For example, you should convert the value 1 to 0000001 to ensure proper sorting.

To explicitly type a property, specify the appropriate OData data type by setting the m:type attribute within the property definition in the Atom feed. For more information about typing properties, see Inserting and Updating Entities.

The Table service does not persist null values for properties. Specifying a property with a null value is equivalent to omitting that property in the request.

For information about performing batch insert operations, see Performing Entity Group Transactions.

See Also

Authentication for the Azure Storage Services
Setting the OData Data Service Version Headers
Inserting and Updating Entities
Status and Error Codes
Table Service Error Codes