I need to add a row to a MySQL database table but only if the row doesn't already exist. My database server just went down so I can't test this, but will this work as expected?
INSERT INTO `blocks` (`block_file`,`settings_group`)
VALUES ('announcements','announcement_settings')
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT `block_file`,`settings_group`
FROM `blocks`
WHERE `block_file`='announcements' AND `settings_group`='announcement_settings')
It seems like sound logic. Is this a valid query or is there a better way of doing this?
Just create UNIQUE index on (block_file,settings_group) columns, and MySQL will never let you insert a row that would duplicate these values.
And to answer the question: No, it will not work at all.
Related
I'm trying to work with YEAR function on one column in the DB and then add the results to a different table in the DWH.
What am I doing wrong?
INSERT INTO example_dwh1.dim_time (date_year)
SELECT YEAR(time_taken)
FROM exampledb.photos;
When removing the INSERT INTO line, I get the results I want, but I'm not able to insert them into the dwh table.
Thanks for your help!
The following select works, but I don't see the data in the table after the insert:
INSERT INTO example_dwh1.dim_time (date_year)
SELECT YEAR(time_taken)
FROM exampledb.photos;
There is rather broad. Assuming you have no errors in the insert, you might have:
You are incorrectly querying dim_time, so the data is there but your check is wrong.
You are inserting into dim_time in one database but querying it in another.
Assuming you have errors but are missing them, here are some possibilities:
The database does not exist.
The table does not exist.
The column is misnamed.
Other columns are declared NOT NULL.
Triggers defined on the table are preventing the insert.
Unique constraints/indexes on the table are preventing the insert.
Your question does not provide enough information to be more specific. However, it seems highly suspicious to be inserting a bunch of years -- which might include many duplicates -- into a dimension table.
When adding a row to a table, but first checking to see if it exists first Which would be the most efficient way of handling this?
Would it be a case of query to see if it exist, if not then insert.
Or using on duplicate?
Or simply replace (Would this work, if the row did not exist)?
Thanks
I think this is the fastest way in MySQL:
REPLACE into table (col1, col2) values(1, 'ABC')
EDIT:
MySQL will delete the row if it does exist and insert a new one.
I think you need INSERT IGNORE see this or INSERT ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE
depends what you mean by 'exists' if there is a unique field you can check against such as 'email' or 'login' then you can just try the insert and mysql raise error if exists, otherwise you'd do the replace as juergen d just suggested.
NB: don't use replace if you wanted your timestamps for any reason (such as if they're used in encrypted passwords or salt
I'm trying to create a code for a single button where it will perform either of two actions where it will add to the database if the user currently don't have the record while it will update the user's record if the user has records already. I've done it like this:
if() {
mysql_query("INSERT INTO table...");
}
else {
mysql_query("UPDATE table SET...");
}
Is it possible?
Yes, what you've written will work. If you have a way to know if there already exists a row or not without making an additional query just for this bit of code, then do exactly as you wrote.
If, however, you planned to first SELECT from the table to see if a row exists, then conditionally INSERT or UPDATE, you will perform more queries than necessary.
It would be better to either:
Have a PRIMARY KEY or other constraint on the table prevent duplicate INSERTs. Then issue an INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE query. This will attempt to INSERT the row, and if it is a duplicate, automatically perform the specified UPDATE to that row instead.
Issue the UPDATE query and check mysql_affected_rows to see if it updated an existing row. If not, then issue the INSERT query to create the new row.
Which one is more appropriate depends on your application.
you can use INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE Syntax like:
INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=c+1;
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/insert-on-duplicate.html
If you have properly set unique keys, you should use REPLACE so you could remove the if.
REPLACE INTO table VALUE (...);
Pay attention that this is a MySQL extension, thus not portable to other DBs.
Yes, you could try the insert then if it fails try the update.
But you could use the MYSQL sql "REPLACE" keyword, which will insert a new record if it doesn't exist or delete the existing record and insert your new one if it does.
You could also use the INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE syntax
(explained here - Link to MYSQL ref which seems to be the closest fit to your requirement.
yes it is possible
first write a query for check that record is already exist or not.
Yes it is possible , it will work
In MySQL, I'm trying to find an efficient way to perform an UPDATE if a row already exists in a table, or an INSERT if the row doesn't exist.
I've found two possible ways so far:
The obvious one: open a transaction, SELECT to find if the row exists, INSERT if it doesn't exist or UPDATE if it exists, commit transaction
first INSERT IGNORE into the table (so no error is raised if the row already exists), then UPDATE
The second method avoids the transaction.
Which one do you think is more efficient, and are there better ways (for example using a trigger)?
INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE
You could also perform an UPDATE, check the number of rows affected, if it's less than 1, then it didn't find a matching row, so perfom the INSERT.
There is another way - REPLACE.
REPLACE INTO myTable (col1) VALUES (value1)
REPLACE works exactly like INSERT, except that if an old row in the table has the same value as a new row for a PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE index, the old row is deleted before the new row is inserted. See Section 12.2.5, “INSERT Syntax”.
In mysql there's a REPLACE statement that, I believe, does more or less what you want it to do.
REPLACE INTO would be a solution, it uses the UNIQUE INDEX for replacing or inserting something.
REPLACE INTO
yourTable
SET
column = value;
Please be aware that this works differently from what you might expect, the REPLACE is quite literally. It first checks if there is a UNIQUE INDEX collision which would prevent an INSERT, it removes (DELETE) all rows which collide and then INSERTs the row you've given it.
This, for example, leads to subtle problems like Triggers not firing (because they check for an update, which never occurs) or values reverted to the defaults (because you must specify all values).
If you're doing a lot of these, it might be worth writing them to a file, and then using 'LOAD DATA INFILE ... REPLACE ...'
If you got 100 000 users, is MySQL executing one SQL query at the time?
Because in my PHP code I check if a certain row exists; if it doesn't it creates one. If it does, it just updates the row counter.
It crossed my mind that perhaps 100 users are checking if the row exists at the same time, and when it doesn't they all create one row each.
If MySQL is handling them sequentially I know that it won't be an issue, then one user will check if it exists, if not, create it. The other user will check if it exists, and since that's the case, it just updates the counter.
But if they all check if it exists at the same time and let's say it doesn't, then they all create one row and the whole table structure will fail.
Would be great if someone could shed some light on this topic.
Use a UNIQUE constraint or, if viable, make the primary key one of your data items and the SQL server will prevent duplicate rows from being created. You can even use the "ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ..." syntax to specify the alternate operation if the row already exists.
From your comments, it sounds like you could use the user_id as your primary key, in which case, you'd be able to use something like this:
INSERT INTO usercounts (user_id,usercount)
VALUES (id-goes-here,1)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE usercount=usercount+1;
If you put the check and insert into a transaction then you can avoid this problem. This way, the check and create will be run as one one query and there shouldn't be any confusion