SELECT or INSERT a row in one command

using 9.5 i successfully tried this

  • based on Denis de Bernardy's answer
  • only 1 parameter
  • no union
  • no stored procedure
  • atomic, thus no concurrency problems (i think...)

The Query:

WITH neworexisting AS (
    INSERT INTO mytable(other_key) VALUES('hello 2') 
    ON CONFLICT(other_key) DO UPDATE SET existed=true -- need some update to return sth
    RETURNING * 
)
SELECT * FROM neworexisting

first call:

id|other_key|created            |existed|
--|---------|-------------------|-------|
 6|hello 1  |2019-09-11 11:39:29|false  |

second call:

id|other_key|created            |existed|
--|---------|-------------------|-------|
 6|hello 1  |2019-09-11 11:39:29|true   |

First create your table ;-)

CREATE TABLE mytable (
    id serial NOT NULL,
    other_key text NOT NULL,
    created timestamptz NOT NULL DEFAULT now(),
    existed bool NOT NULL DEFAULT false,
    CONSTRAINT mytable_pk PRIMARY KEY (id),
    CONSTRAINT mytable_uniq UNIQUE (other_key) --needed for on conflict
);

Have you tried to union it?

Edit - this requires Postgres 9.1:

create table mytable (id serial primary key, other_key varchar not null unique);

WITH new_row AS (
INSERT INTO mytable (other_key)
SELECT 'SOMETHING'
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE other_key = 'SOMETHING')
RETURNING *
)
SELECT * FROM new_row
UNION
SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE other_key = 'SOMETHING';

results in:

 id | other_key 
----+-----------
  1 | SOMETHING
(1 row)

No, there is no special SQL syntax that allows you to do select or insert. You can do what Ilia mentions and create a sproc, which means it will not do a round trip fromt he client to server, but it will still result in two queries (three actually, if you count the sproc itself).

Tags:

Postgresql

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