Question

What is the best way to deal with the primary key violation errors when using SQLBulkCopy

Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'email_k__'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object  'lntmuser.email'.

(i.e. if the row already exists in the destination table) ?

Is there a way to skip inserting duplicate rows or would this have to be checked and dealt with before hand ?

Here is the code I am currently using:

  var conPro = tx_ProConStr.Text;
  var conArc = tx_ArcConStr.Text;

  var con = new SqlConnection {ConnectionString = conPro};
  var cmd = new SqlCommand("SELECT * FROM dbo.email", con);
  con.Open();

  var rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader(); 
  var sbc = new SqlBulkCopy(conArc) {DestinationTableName = "dbo.email"};

  sbc.WriteToServer(rdr);

  sbc.Close();
  rdr.Close();
  con.Close();

Answer 1

I usually end up performing a Bulk Copy operation to a temporary table, and then copy data from it to the target table using regular SQL. This allows me to perform ‘bulk updates’, as well as take care of special situations like this (although I haven’t encountered this specific need).

There’s a performance hit compared to straight bulk copy, but it’s still a lot faster than performing INSERTs.