Question

My MERGE INTO statement works in SQL using SQL Developer:

MERGE INTO EMAIL_LIST d USING (SELECT '[e-mail]' EMAIL FROM DUAL) s ON (d.EMAIL = s.EMAIL) WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT (EMAIL) VALUES (s.EMAIL);

But doesn’t work when attempted in PHP:

$update_or_insert_list = oci_parse($conn,
                                   "MERGE INTO EMAIL_LIST d USING (SELECT :email EMAIL FROM DUAL) s ON (d.EMAIL = s.EMAIL) WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT (EMAIL) VALUES (s.EMAIL);"
); // Also tried with ':email' and/or with ; inside the SQL statement

oci_bind_by_name($update_or_insert_list, ':email', $email);

oci_execute($update_or_insert_list);

Here is the table:

CREATE TABLE EMAIL_LIST ( 
    EMAIL VARCHAR2 (100)  NOT NULL
);
ALTER TABLE EMAIL_LIST
    ADD CONSTRAINT PK_EMAIL_LIST PRIMARY KEY ( EMAIL ) ;

-- And yes, this is a test-case!

How do I get MERGE INTO working in PHP?

Answer 1

This is not a MERGE error, remove the ending ; in your query.

The final semi-colon is not part of the SQL. It is used in various client interface (SQL*Plus, SQL Developer…) to indicate the end of the SQL statement. In PHP each request is a single SQL statement so the semi-colon is not necessary.