SQL Server 2005 implementation of MySQL REPLACE INTO?

Question

MySQL has this incredibly useful yet proprietary REPLACE INTO SQL Command.

Can this easily be emulated in SQL Server 2005?

Starting a new Transaction, doing a Select() and then either UPDATE or INSERT and COMMIT is always a little bit of a pain, especially when doing it in the application and therefore always keeping 2 versions of the statement.

I wonder if there is an easy and universal way to implement such a function into SQL Server 2005?

Answer 1

This is something that annoys me about MSSQL (rant on my blog). I wish MSSQL supported upsert.

@Dillie-O's code is a good way in older SQL versions (+1 vote), but it still is basically two IO operations (the exists and then the update or insert)

There's a slightly better way on this post, basically:

--try an update
update tablename 
set field1 = 'new value',
    field2 = 'different value',
    ...
where idfield = 7

--insert if failed
if @@rowcount = 0 and @@error = 0
    insert into tablename 
           ( idfield, field1, field2, ... )
    values ( 7, 'value one', 'another value', ... )

This reduces it to one IO operations if it's an update, or two if an insert.

MS Sql2008 introduces merge from the SQL:2003 standard:

merge tablename as target
using (values ('new value', 'different value'))
    as source (field1, field2)
    on target.idfield = 7
when matched then
    update
    set field1 = source.field1,
        field2 = source.field2,
        ...
when not matched then
    insert ( idfield, field1, field2, ... )
    values ( 7,  source.field1, source.field2, ... )

Now it's really just one IO operation, but awful code :-(

Answer 2

The functionality you're looking for is traditionally called an UPSERT. Atleast knowing what it's called might help you find what you're looking for.

I don't think SQL Server 2005 has any great ways of doing this. 2008 introduces the MERGE statement that can be used to accomplish this as shown in: http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3739131 or http://blogs.conchango.com/davidportas/archive/2007/11/14/SQL-Server-2008-MERGE.aspx

Merge was available in the beta of 2005, but they removed it out in the final release.

Answer 3

What the upsert/merge is doing is something to the effect of...

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM [Table] WHERE Id = X)
   UPDATE [Table] SET...
ELSE
   INSERT INTO [Table]

So hopefully the combination of those articles and this pseudo code can get things moving.

Answer 4

I wrote a blog post about this issue.

The bottom line is that if you want cheap updates and want to be safe for concurrent usage, try:

update t
set hitCount = hitCount + 1
where pk = @id

if @@rowcount < 1 
begin 
   begin tran
      update t with (serializable)
      set hitCount = hitCount + 1
      where pk = @id
      if @@rowcount = 0
      begin
         insert t (pk, hitCount)
         values (@id,1)
      end
   commit tran
end

This way you have 1 operation for updates and a max of 3 operations for inserts. So, if you are generally updating, this is a safe cheap option.

I would also be very careful not to use anything that is unsafe for concurrent usage. It's really easy to get primary key violations or duplicate rows in production.