Question

I have a table, which includes an ENUM field. I would like for a particular value of ENUM to require uniqueness with the reference ID column. So let’s say I have this:

`id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`type` ENUM('single','multi') NOT NULL,
`refid` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`extra` TEXT,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)

I want (type,refid) to be a unique key, but only if type is single. This can’t be done with conventional keys, so I figured I would use a Trigger to detect insertion of a row, check if type='single', look for a row with type='single' and refid=new.refid, and throw a duplicate entry error if one is found.

I’m using MySQL 5.5, so SIGNAL SQLSTATE is available to me. Can I use this to fire a Duplicate Key error in order to process the ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE part of the query, and if so, how?

As an alternative, I could update the row in the Trigger and return a generic error condition, but I think it would be nicer (or at least more intuitive) to have ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE work.

Answer 1

REPLACE INTO. Derp! Forgot all about that.