Question

I have an insert query for MySQL that looks like this:

INSERT INTO table (foo, bar, fooo, baar, etc) VALUES (?,?,?,?,?)

It is used in a script to migrate some columns and keeps encountering duplicate primary keys. (Old database was awful and poorly maintained).

Is there a way I can just tell it to replace the whole offending row with the current values tossing out the old stuff entirely? I know there is an ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE command, but I don’t know if it would help me as all I’ve seen it used for is incrementing.

ANSWER: INSERT INTO table (foo, bar, fooo, baar, etc) VALUES (?,?,?,?,?) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE foo=?, bar=?, fooo=?, baar=?, etc=?

Keep in mind that you have to add the values in the referenced array again to account for the extra question marks.

Answer 1

From MySQL manual:

If you specify ON DUPLICATE KEY
UPDATE, and a row is inserted that
would cause a duplicate value in a
UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY, an UPDATE
of the old row is performed.

What you said:

Is there a way I can just tell it to
replace the whole offending row with
the current values tossing out the old
stuff entirely?

Conclusion: why don’t you just try it? It seems it does exactly what you want.

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Edit: Since you haven’t provided any examples of what you were trying to do, I’ll use some from MySQL’s website.

INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
  ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=c+1;

Or if you want something that relates more to real world:

INSERT INTO table(int_field, str_field, float_field) VALUES (15, ‘some string’, ‘1.22’)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE int_field = 15, str_field = ‘some_string’, float_field = ‘1.22’;