Using SQl Server CE; Possible to Insert Only If Not Exists? - sql

I'm trying to verify a simple 1 field table to determine if a record exists before inserting a duplicate.
if not exists (select * from url where url = ...)
insert into url...
Can someone Help?

Your code example will run in the full version of SQL, or you could rearrange to the following:
insert into url
select 'myvalue'
where not exists (select * from url where url = 'myvalue')

Just reverse it and add the condition as a where clause predicate
Insert Into Table ....
Where Not Exists
(Select * From table where ...)
... But your basic problem sounds like it might be better solved by putting a alternate key (unique) constraint on the insert table, referencing the url column (I assume Sql CE does Referential Integrity (RI) constraints?)

You might want to read this thread. performing-insert-or-update-upsert-on-sql-server-compact-edition
In a nutshell a sqlce specific solution (using SqlCeResultSet) will provide the maximum performance.

Use an Outer Join
Insert into X(...)
select blah, blah, blah
from
table t left outer join
X on t.id=x.id
where
x.id is null

Granted, this is way past the posting date, but since I've not seen this answered elsewhere in my quick Google search, I thought I'd share how I solved this with SQL CE so others searching might find an answer.
-- Update existing record's value
UPDATE myTable SET myValue = 'Hello World' WHERE keyField = 'MyKey';
-- Insert new record if existing record doesn't exist`
INSERT INTO myTable (keyField, myValue)
SELECT I.keyField, I.myValue
FROM (
SELECT 'Hello World' AS myValue, 'MyKey' AS keyField
) I
LEFT JOIN myTable T ON I.keyField = T.keyField
WHERE T.keyField IS NULL;

You are on the right path with IF NOT EXISTS. It is better to use IF NOT EXISTS() or IF EXISTS() than a Sub Query because SQL Server will stop scanning rows in the table when it finds the first instance that matches the EXISTS() condition your looking for. With a Sub Query written in the examples above it will scan the whole table.
A Classic example is the Insert or Update aka the SAVE.
IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM Table_A WHERE Column_1 = #Parameter)
BEGIN
--Update Statement here.
END
ELSE
BEGIN
--Insert Statement here.
END

What about something like this:
UPDATE Table1 SET (...) WHERE Column1='SomeValue'
IF ##ROWCOUNT=0
INSERT INTO Table1 VALUES (...)
Source

Related

IF-Statement in SQLite: update or insert?

I Can't run this query with SQLite
if 0<(select COUNT(*) from Repetition where (Word='behnam' and Topic='mine'))
begin
update Repetition set Counts=1+ (select Counts from Repetition where (Word='behnam' and Topic='mine'))
end
else
begin
insert Repetition(Word,Topic,Counts)values('behnam','mine',1)
end
It says "Syntax error near IF"
How can I solve the problem
SQLite does not have an IF statement (see the list of supported queries)
Insetad, check out out ERIC B's suggestion on another thread. You're effectively looking at doing an UPSERT (UPdate if the record exists, INSERT if not). Eric B. has a good example of how to do this in SQLite syntax utilizing the "INSERT OR REPLACE" functionality in SQLite. Basically, you'd do something like:
INSERT OR REPLACE INTO Repetition (Word, Topic, Counts)
VALUES ( 'behnam', 'mine',
coalesce((select Counts + 1 from Repetition
where Word = 'behnam', AND Topic = 'mine)
,1)
)
Another approach is to INSERT ... SELECT ... WHERE ... EXISTS [or not] (SELECT ...);
I do this sort of thing all the time, and I use jklemmack's suggestion as well. And I do it for other purposes too, such as doing JOINs in UPDATEs (which SQLite3 does not support).
For example:
CREATE TABLE t(id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, c1 TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE, c2 TEXT);
CREATE TABLE r(c1 TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE, c2 TEXT);
INSERT OR REPLACE INTO t (id, c1, c2)
SELECT t.id, coalesce(r.c1, t.c1), coalesce(r.c2, t.c2)
FROM r LEFT OUTER JOIN t ON r.c1 = t.c1
WHERE r.c2 = #param;
The WHERE there has the condition that you'd have in your IF. The JOIN in the SELECT provides the JOIN that SQLite3 doesn't support in UPDATE. The INSERT OR REPLACE and the use of t.id (which can be NULL if the row doesn't exist in t) together provide the THEN and ELSE bodies.
You can apply this over and over. If you'd have three statements (that cannot somehow be merged into one) in the THEN part of the IF you'd need to have three statements with the IF condition in their WHEREs.
This is called an UPSERT (i.e. UPdate or inSERT). It has its forms in almost every type of database. Look at this question for the SQLite version: SQLite - UPSERT *not* INSERT or REPLACE
One way that I've found is based on SQL WHERE clause true/false statement:
SELECT * FROM SOME_TABLE
WHERE
(
SELECT SINGLE_COLUMN_NAME FROM SOME_OTHER_TABLE
WHERE
SOME_COLUMN = 'some value' and
SOME_OTHER_COLUMN = 'some other value'
)
This actually means execute some QUERIES if some other QUERY returns 'any' result.

SQL Duplicate Key Help

I have a statement that looks something like this:
insert table_name(...)
select .... from ... join ...
How can I use where not exists or something of that effect with this insert and select statement so that if this exact code is reran with the same values, it won't throw an error. I don't want to have to copy and paste the select/joins in a check as it is a pretty big block of code, so is there any way to do something like
if not exists (insert table_name(...)
select ... from...join)
or would it be something else like
insert table_name(...)
if not exists(select ... from ... join)
Try using the sql server MERGE command.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb510625.aspx
Trying to keep this as generic as you did and still have it make sense. Hopefully, this is understandable.
insert table_name(...)
select .... from ... join ...
WHERE NOT EXISTS(SELECT NULL
FROM table_name
WHERE PKColumn = YourOuterSelectTable.PKColumn)
To try to put some more meat on it:
/* Assume Column1 is primary key */
INSERT INTO table_name
(Column1, Column2)
SELECT a.Column1, b.Column2
FROM TableA a
INNER JOIN TableB b
ON a.Column1 = b.FKColumn1
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT NULL
FROM table_name
WHERE Column1 = a.Column1)
You may be able to just put it in a TRY CATCH block to just eat an exception if this insert fails.
http://geekswithblogs.net/ram/archive/2006/10/12/93829.aspx
On that note I must say that this is considered BAD PRACTICE to use exceptions to control logic flow.
I am more concerned about why this situation exists, I am having a hard time thinking of a legitimate situation in a GOOD DESIGN where this problem would occur?
In your
select .... from ... join ...
do a left join to the table you are inserting to with the new values you want to insert
if those joined values are null then you can safely insert without error.

T-SQL cursor and update

I use a cursor to iterate through quite a big table. For each row I check if value from one column exists in other.
If the value exists, I would like to increase value column in that other table.
If not, I would like to insert there new row with value set to 1.
I check "if exists" by:
IF (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM otherTabe WHERE... > 1)
BEGIN
...
END
ELSE
BEGIN
...
END
I don't know how to get that row which was found and update value. I don't want to make another select.
How can I do this efficiently?
I assume that the method of checking described above isn't good for this case.
Depending on the size of your data and the actual condition, you have two basic approaches:
1) use MERGE
MERGE TOP (...) INTO table1
USING table2 ON table1.column = table2.column
WHEN MATCHED
THEN UPDATE SET table1.counter += 1
WHEN NOT MATCHED SOURCE
THEN INSERT (...) VALUES (...);
the TOP is needed because when you're doing a huge update like this (you mention the table is 'big', big is relative, but lets assume truly big, +100MM rows) you have to batch the updates, otherwise you'll overwhelm the transaction log with one single gigantic transaction.
2) use a cursor, as you are trying. Your original question can be easily solved, simply always update and then check the count of rows updated:
UPDATE table
SET column += 1
WHERE ...;
IF ##ROW_COUNT = 0
BEGIN
-- no match, insert new value
INSERT INTO (...) VALUES (...);
END
Note that this approach is dangerous though because of race conditions: there is nothing to prevent another thread from inserting the value concurrently, so you may end up with either duplicates or a constraint violation error (preferably the latter...).
This is just psuedo code because I have no idea of your table structure but I think you will understand... basically Update the columns you want then Insert the columns you need. A Cursor operation sounds unnecessary.
Update OtherTable
Set ColumnToIncrease = ColumnToIncrease + 1
FROM CurrentTable Where ColumnToCheckValue is not null
Insert Into OtherTable (ColumnToIncrease, Field1, Field2,...)
SELECT
1,
?
?
FROM CurrentTable Where ColumnToCheckValue is not null
Without a sample, I think this is the best I can do. Bottom line: you don't need a cursor. UPDATE where a match exists (INNER JOIN) and INSERT where one does not.
UPDATE otherTable
SET IncrementingColumn = IncrementingColumn + 1
FROM thisTable INNER JOIN otherTable ON thisTable.ID = otherTable.ID
INSERT INTO otherTable
(
ID
, IncrementingColumn
)
SELECT ID, 1
FROM thisTable
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM otherTable
WHERE thisTable.ID = otherTable.ID)
I think you'd be better off using a view for this -- then it's always up to date, no risk of mistakenly double/triple/etc counting:
CREATE VIEW vw_value_count AS
SELECT st.value,
COUNT(*) AS numValue
FROM SOME_TABLE st
GROUP BY st.value
But if you still want to use the INSERT/UPDATE approach:
IF EXISTS(SELECT NULL
FROM SOMETABLE WHERE ... > 1)
BEGIN
UPDATE TABLE
SET count = count + 1
WHERE value = #value
END
ELSE
BEGIN
INSERT INTO TABLE
(value, count)
VALUES
(#value, 1)
END
What about Update statement with inner join to perform +1, and Insert selected rows that do not exist in the first table.
Provide the tables schema and the columns you want to check and update so I can help.
Regards.

Using tuples in SQL in clause

Given a database like this:
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
CREATE TABLE aTable (
a STRING,
b STRING
);
INSERT INTO aTable VALUES('one','two');
INSERT INTO aTable VALUES('one','three');
CREATE TABLE anotherTable (
a STRING,
b STRING
);
INSERT INTO anotherTable VALUES('one','three');
INSERT INTO anotherTable VALUES('two','three');
COMMIT;
I would like to do something along the lines of
SELECT a,b FROM aTable
WHERE (aTable.a,aTable.b) IN
(SELECT anotherTable.a,anotherTable.b FROM anotherTable);
To get the answer 'one','three', but I'm getting "near ",": syntax error"
Is this possible in any flavour of SQL? (I'm using SQLite)
Am I making a gross conceptual error? Or what?
your code works if you do it in PostgreSQL or Oracle. on MS SQL, it is not supported
use this:
SELECT a,b FROM aTable
WHERE
-- (aTable.a,aTable.b) IN -- leave this commented, it makes the intent more clear
EXISTS
(
SELECT anotherTable.a,anotherTable.b -- do not remove this too, perfectly fine for self-documenting code, i.e.. tuple presence testing
FROM anotherTable
WHERE anotherTable.a = aTable.a AND anotherTable.b = aTable.b
);
[EDIT]
sans the stating of intent:
SELECT a,b FROM aTable
WHERE
EXISTS
(
SELECT *
FROM anotherTable
WHERE anotherTable.a = aTable.a AND anotherTable.b = aTable.b
);
it's somewhat lame, for more than a decade, MS SQL still don't have first-class support for tuples. IN tuple construct is way more readable than its analogous EXISTS construct. btw, JOIN also works (tster's code), but if you need something more flexible and future-proof, use EXISTS.
[EDIT]
speaking of SQLite, i'm dabbling with it recently. yeah, IN tuples doesn't work
you can use a join:
SELECT aTable.a, aTable.b FROM aTable
JOIN anotherTable ON aTable.a = anotherTable.a AND aTable.b = anotherTable.b
Another alternative is to use concatenation to make your 2-tuple into a single field :
SELECT a,b FROM aTable
WHERE (aTable.a||'-'||aTable.b) IN
(SELECT (anotherTable.a || '-' || anotherTable.b FROM anotherTable);
...just be aware that bad things can happen if a or b contain the delimiter '-'

Alternative SQL ways of looking up multiple items of known IDs?

Is there a better solution to the problem of looking up multiple known IDs in a table:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id='1001' OR id='2002' OR id='3003' OR ...
I can have several hundreds of known items. Ideas?
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE ID IN ('1001', '1002', '1003')
and if your known IDs are coming from another table
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE ID IN (
SELECT KnownID FROM some_other_table WHERE someCondition
)
The first (naive) option:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN ('1001', '2002', '3003' ... )
However, we should be able to do better. IN is very bad when you have a lot of items, and you mentioned hundreds of these ids. What creates them? Where do they come from? Can you write a query that returns this list? If so:
SELECT *
FROM some_table
INNER JOIN ( your query here) filter ON some_table.id=filter.id
See Arrays and Lists in SQL Server 2005
ORs are notoriously slow in SQL.
Your question is short on specifics, but depending on your requirements and constraints I would build a look-up table with your IDs and use the EXISTS predicate:
select t.id from some_table t
where EXISTS (select * from lookup_table l where t.id = l.id)
For a fixed set of IDs you can do:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN (1001, 2002, 3003);
For a set that changes each time, you might want to create a table to hold them and then query:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN
(SELECT id FROM selected_ids WHERE key=123);
Another approach is to use collections - the syntax for this will depend on your DBMS.
Finally, there is always this "kludgy" approach:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE '|1001|2002|3003|' LIKE '%|' || id || '|%';
In Oracle, I always put the id's into a TEMPORARY TABLE to perform massive SELECT's and DML operations:
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE t_temp (id INT)
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE mytable.id IN
(
SELECT id
FROM t_temp
)
You can fill the temporary table in a single client-server roundtrip using Oracle collection types.
We have a similar issue in an application written for MS SQL Server 7. Although I dislike the solution used, we're not aware of anything better...
'Better' solutions exist in 2008 as far as I know, but we have Zero clients using that :)
We created a table valued user defined function that takes a comma delimited string of IDs, and returns a table of IDs. The SQL then reads reasonably well, and none of it is dynamic, but there is still the annoying double overhead:
1. Client concatenates the IDs into the string
2. SQL Server parses the string to create a table of IDs
There are lots of ways of turning '1,2,3,4,5' into a table of IDs, but the Stored Procedure which uses the function ends up looking like...
CREATE PROCEDURE my_road_to_hell #IDs AS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SELECT
*
FROM
myTable
INNER JOIN
dbo.fn_split_list(#IDs) AS [IDs]
ON [IDs].id = myTable.id
END
The fastest is to put the ids in another table and JOIN
SELECT some_table.*
FROM some_table INNER JOIN some_other_table ON some_table.id = some_other_table.id
where some_other_table would have just one field (ids) and all values would be unique