move data from one table to another, postgresql edition

Question

[Expanding on dvv’s answer]

You can move to an existing table as follows. For unmatched schema, you should specify columns.

WITH moved_rows AS (
    DELETE FROM <original_table> a
    USING <other_table> b
    WHERE <condition>
    RETURNING a.* -- or specify columns
)
INSERT INTO <existing_table> --specify columns if necessary
SELECT [DISTINCT] * FROM moved_rows;

But you want to move the data into a new table (not an existing one), the outer syntax is different:

CREATE TABLE <new_table> AS
WITH moved_rows AS (
    DELETE FROM <original_table> a
    USING <other_table> b
    WHERE <condition>
    RETURNING a.* -- or specify columns
)
SELECT [DISTINCT] * FROM moved_rows;

Note: "USING <other_table> b" will join a with b so that you can delete rows from a based on the join result. If you don’t have any other_table to join, you can just omit this. See here for more info.

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