Question

I’ve been racking my brain over this for the past few days and I’m not sure it’s possible, but figured I ask here.

Is it possible for a single SQL statement to update a high score if your score is greater or insert it if your first score?

My Score table has a UserID, Level and Score columns and I like it to follow the following logic:

• If your new score is greater than your last score for this Level, then replace it.
• If you don’t have a score for this Level then add it.
• If your score for this Level is less than your highest score for this Level then do nothing.

Is this possible in a single SQL statement or do I have to use two, one to see if you have a new high score and if so, replace it? Each UserID would have only one score in the table for each Level.

I’m using MySQL.

UPDATE:

Based on the answer below, this following SQL worked:

INSERT INTO Scores SET UserID = 'user', Level = 'level', Score = 'score'
    ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE Score = IF (Score < 'score', 'score', Score)  

My table is defined so UserID and Level are both keys.

Answer 1

You will want to use: INSERT … ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE syntax for this

This site shows the use of IF statements instead of WHERE to accomplish your only updating the score if higher.

INSERT INTO Scores
SET UserID = 'user'
   , Level = 'level'
   , Score = 'score'
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE
   Score = IF (Score < 'score', 'score', Score)