[sql] oracle sql: update if exists else insert

Possible Duplicate:
Oracle: how to UPSERT (update or insert into a table?)

Hi,

I have a table in which a record has to be modified if it already exists else a new record has to be inserted. Oracle sql doesnt accept IF EXISTS, otherwise I would have done an if - update - else - insert query. I've looked at MERGE but it only works for multiple tables. What do i do?

MERGE doesn't need "multiple tables", but it does need a query as the source. Something like this should work:

MERGE INTO mytable d
USING (SELECT 1 id, 'x' name from dual) s
ON (d.id = s.id)
WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET d.name = s.name
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT (id, name) VALUES (s.id, s.name);

Alternatively you can do this in PL/SQL:

BEGIN
  INSERT INTO mytable (id, name) VALUES (1, 'x');
EXCEPTION
  WHEN DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX THEN
    UPDATE mytable
    SET    name = 'x'
    WHERE id = 1;
END;

The way I always do it (assuming the data is never to be deleted, only inserted) is to

• Firstly do an insert, if this fails with a unique constraint violation then you know the row is there,
• Then do an update

Unfortunately many frameworks such as Hibernate treat all database errors (e.g. unique constraint violation) as unrecoverable conditions, so it isn't always easy. (In Hibernate the solution is to open a new session/transaction just to execute this one insert command.)

You can't just do a select count(*) .. where .. as even if that returns zero, and therefore you choose to do an insert, between the time you do the select and the insert someone else might have inserted the row and therefore your insert will fail.

merge into MY_TABLE tgt
using (select [expressions]
         from dual ) src
   on (src.key_condition = tgt.key_condition)
when matched then 
     update tgt
        set tgt.column1 = src.column1 [,...]
when not matched then 
     insert into tgt
        ([list of columns])
     values
        (src.column1 [,...]);

HC-way :)

DECLARE
  rt_mytable mytable%ROWTYPE;
  CURSOR update_mytable_cursor(p_rt_mytable IN mytable%ROWTYPE) IS
  SELECT *
  FROM   mytable
  WHERE  ID = p_rt_mytable.ID
  FOR UPDATE;
BEGIN
  rt_mytable.ID   := 1;
  rt_mytable.NAME := 'x';
  INSERT INTO mytable VALUES (rt_mytable);
EXCEPTION WHEN DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX THEN
  <<update_mytable>>
  FOR i IN update_mytable_cursor(rt_mytable) LOOP
    UPDATE mytable SET    
      NAME = p_rt_mytable.NAME
    WHERE CURRENT OF update_mytable_cursor;
  END LOOP update_mytable;
END;

Please refer to this question if you want to use UPSERT/MERGE command in Oracle. Otherwise, just resolve your issue on the client side by doing a count(1) first and then deciding whether to insert or update.

You could use the SQL%ROWCOUNT Oracle variable:

UPDATE table1
  SET field2 = value2, 
      field3 = value3 
WHERE field1 = value1; 

IF (SQL%ROWCOUNT = 0) THEN 

  INSERT INTO table (field1, field2, field3)
  VALUES (value1, value2, value3);

END IF; 

It would be easier just to determine if your primary key (i.e. field1) has a value and then perform an insert or update accordingly. That is, if you use said values as parameters for a stored procedure.