Question

Is there a way to bulk upsert in SQL Server 2005? Something akin to 2008’s MERGE would be perfect. I have one table working as a temp workspace that will need to be reconciled to the main table on session complete. In 2008, merge would do great for this, but the only 2005 methods I’ve seen are for individual upserts, not bulk. Ideas?

Answer 1

First do an update and then do the insert. Something like this.

update TargetTable
set Col1 = SourceTable.Col1,
    Col2 = SourceTable.Col2
from SourceTable
where TargetTable.ID = SourceTable.ID

insert into TargetTable(Col1, Col2)
select Col1, Col2
from SourceTable
where SourceTable.ID not in (select ID from TargetTable)

Update:

If you have more than one column in the primary key you can use not exists instead.

update TargetTable
set Col1 = SourceTable.Col1,
    Col2 = SourceTable.Col2
from SourceTable
where TargetTable.ID1 = SourceTable.ID1 and
      TargetTable.ID2 = SourceTable.ID2

insert into TargetTable(Col1, Col2)
select Col1, Col2
from SourceTable
where not exists (select * 
                  from TargetTable
                  where TargetTable.ID1 = SourceTable.ID1 and
                  TargetTable.ID2 = SourceTable.ID2)