Question

I have table named “highscore” like this:

nameQL scoreQL
piotr 50

And flash game with NAME and SCORE exported to PHP with this names.

How to make this in PHP file:

• IF (NAME exists in database (nameQL)
  AND SCORE> this.name.scoreQL){Raplace scoreQL
  with SCORE WHERE nameQL=NAME}
• IF (NAME doesn’t exists){Create
  new row with NAME and SCORE)

Answer 1

I would use insert .. on duplicate key update ... statement. Something like this:

insert into highscore set
    name = :name,
    score = :new_score
on duplicate key update
    score = greatest(score, :new_score)

name column should be indexed as unique.

Test script:

create table player (
    name varchar(32) primary key,
    score int not null default 0
);

-- create new players
insert into player set name = 'foo', score = 100
    on duplicate key update score = greatest(score, 100);
insert into player set name = 'bar', score = 100
    on duplicate key update score = greatest(score, 100);
insert into player set name = 'baz', score = 100
    on duplicate key update score = greatest(score, 100);

-- update score of existing player
insert into player set name = 'bar', score = 200
    on duplicate key update score = greatest(score, 200);

Output of select * from player:

+------+-------+
| name | score |
+------+-------+
| bar  |   200 |
| baz  |   100 |
| foo  |   100 |
+------+-------+