Solutions for INSERT OR UPDATE on SQL Server

Question

Assume a table structure of MyTable(KEY, datafield1, datafield2...).

Often I want to either update an existing record, or insert a new record if it doesn't exist.

Essentially:

IF (key exists)
  run update command
ELSE
  run insert command

What's the best performing way to write this?

Answer 1

If you want to UPSERT more than one record at a time you can use the ANSI SQL:2003 DML statement MERGE.

MERGE INTO table_name WITH (HOLDLOCK) USING table_name ON (condition)
WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET column1 = value1 [, column2 = value2 ...]
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN INSERT (column1 [, column2 ...]) VALUES (value1 [, value2 ...])

Check out Mimicking MERGE Statement in SQL Server 2005.

Answer 2

You can use MERGE Statement, This statement is used to insert data if not exist or update if does exist.

MERGE INTO Employee AS e
using EmployeeUpdate AS eu
ON e.EmployeeID = eu.EmployeeID`

Answer 3

In SQL Server 2008 you can use the MERGE statement

Answer 4

Many people will suggest you use MERGE, but I caution you against it. By default, it doesn't protect you from concurrency and race conditions any more than multiple statements, but it does introduce other dangers:

http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/3074/use-caution-with-sql-servers-merge-statement/

Even with this "simpler" syntax available, I still prefer this approach (error handling omitted for brevity):

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
UPDATE dbo.table SET ... WHERE PK = @PK;
IF @@ROWCOUNT = 0
BEGIN
  INSERT dbo.table(PK, ...) SELECT @PK, ...;
END
COMMIT TRANSACTION;

A lot of folks will suggest this way:

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM dbo.table WHERE PK = @PK)
BEGIN
  UPDATE ...
END
ELSE
  INSERT ...
END
COMMIT TRANSACTION;

But all this accomplishes is ensuring you may need to read the table twice to locate the row(s) to be updated. In the first sample, you will only ever need to locate the row(s) once. (In both cases, if no rows are found from the initial read, an insert occurs.)

Others will suggest this way:

BEGIN TRY
  INSERT ...
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
  IF ERROR_NUMBER() = 2627
    UPDATE ...
END CATCH

However, this is problematic if for no other reason than letting SQL Server catch exceptions that you could have prevented in the first place is much more expensive, except in the rare scenario where almost every insert fails. I prove as much here:

• http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2632/checking-for-potential-constraint-violations-before-entering-sql-server-try-and-catch-logic/
• http://www.sqlperformance.com/2012/08/t-sql-queries/error-handling

Answer 5

don't forget about transactions. Performance is good, but simple (IF EXISTS..) approach is very dangerous.
When multiple threads will try to perform Insert-or-update you can easily get primary key violation.

Solutions provided by @Beau Crawford & @Esteban show general idea but error-prone.

To avoid deadlocks and PK violations you can use something like this:

begin tran
if exists (select * from table with (updlock,serializable) where key = @key)
begin
   update table set ...
   where key = @key
end
else
begin
   insert into table (key, ...)
   values (@key, ...)
end
commit tran

or

begin tran
   update table with (serializable) set ...
   where key = @key

   if @@rowcount = 0
   begin
      insert into table (key, ...) values (@key,..)
   end
commit tran

Answer 6

Do an UPSERT:

UPDATE MyTable SET FieldA=@FieldA WHERE Key=@Key

IF @@ROWCOUNT = 0
   INSERT INTO MyTable (FieldA) VALUES (@FieldA)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsert