Question

I have a table setup with a UNIQUE column called, for example, test. I want to insert a row with the column test only if there isn’t already a row in the table with test. I know I could just do the INSERT query and it would throw up an error if it already existed (and wouldn’t really cause any harm AFAIK), but is there a way to do this properly using only MySQL? I’m pretty sure it can be done with functions but I’ve never used those before and I think there’s an easier way.

Answer 1

Sounds like a job for INSERT IGNORE:

If you use the IGNORE keyword, errors
that occur while executing the INSERT
statement are treated as warnings
instead. For example, without IGNORE,
a row that duplicates an existing
UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY value in
the table causes a duplicate-key error
and the statement is aborted. With
IGNORE, the row still is not inserted,
but no error is issued.