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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T13:58:17+00:00

I am using an API that returns items to me, and then storing those

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I am using an API that returns items to me, and then storing those items in a MySQL database. However, the API does not return a unique ID for each item, so I risk storing the same item twice unless I check for duplicates.

I think the most efficient way to prevent duplicates is having a unique index in MySQL. However, since MySQL cannot have unique indexes for strings, I need to convert one of the strings (probably the URL) to an integer to store in the unique index column. Am I correct in that assumption? How would I go about accomplishing this with PHP?

Thank you.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You can have a VARCHAR-type column that is indexed UNIQUE, it will not be auto-increment though. You could then use REPLACE INTO for your update/insert queries.

    Alternately, you can still use an auto-increment integer ID column in combination with a unique index VARCHAR column, you’ll just have to check for a duplication before (or after) an INSERT query to handle the case where a string ID duplicates an existing one.

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