CODEWITHSUNDEEP
mysqlsql
Smithy
Smithy

Reputation: 405

MYSQL - Insert into table if not exists with no obvious primary/unique key

I have a table with 2 columns, they are 'user' and 'action' and are used to denote when a user has completed a certain action. An entry should only be made if a user has not made the given action before so I feel something like the following is what is required:

IF NOT EXISTS (select * from actiontable WHERE user=1 and action=5) THEN 
INSERT INTO actiontable VALUES(1,5);

Yet this seems to be incorrect syntax and I can't find how I should go about this. Is this possible? Or is there some way to use a primary key or unique key to achieve this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 103

Answers (1)

dkasipovic
dkasipovic

Reputation: 6120

You could create a primary key on user,action and then try 

INSERT INTO actiontable (`user`,`action`) VALUES (1,5);

It will fail if the entry already exists. If you do not want to raise an error, you could try

INSERT IGNORE INTO actiontable (`user`,`action`) VALUES (1,5);

Upvotes: 2

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