Duplicate records on insert

[cbrknight]

How can I insert items into a database and when there is a duplicate phonenumber field update the record and continue?

[Sxooter]

The traditional way is to do an insert, and if that fails, do an update. i.e. check the error coming back from the db when you try the insert. This operation is also often called an upsert. Oracle has a klunky, goofy method for doing it I've used before. MySQL has its own command called replace: replace page

[Sxooter]

OK, after reading that html reference I posted, One should note that replace is apparently slower than update / detect fail insert method AND that with innodb tables with cascading deletes can cause rows to go missing due to it not being transactionally safe.

Add: Note that MySQL does support insert into on duplicate update syntax