Question

When adding a row to a table, but first checking to see if it exists first Which would be the most efficient way of handling this?

Would it be a case of query to see if it exist, if not then insert.

Or using on duplicate?

Or simply replace (Would this work, if the row did not exist)?

Thanks

Answer 1

I think this is the fastest way in MySQL:

REPLACE into table (col1, col2) values(1, 'ABC')

EDIT:

MySQL will delete the row if it does exist and insert a new one.