how to emulate "insert ignore" and "on duplicate key update" (sql merge) with postgresql?

Some SQL servers have a feature where INSERT is skipped if it would violate a primary/unique key constraint. For instance, MySQL has INSERT IGNORE.

What's the best way to emulate INSERT IGNORE and ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE with PostgreSQL?

Solution 1:

With PostgreSQL 9.5, this is now native functionality (like MySQL has had for several years):

INSERT ... ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING/UPDATE ("UPSERT")

9.5 brings support for "UPSERT" operations. INSERT is extended to accept an ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE/IGNORE clause. This clause specifies an alternative action to take in the event of a would-be duplicate violation.

...

Further example of new syntax:

INSERT INTO user_logins (username, logins)
VALUES ('Naomi',1),('James',1) 
ON CONFLICT (username)
DO UPDATE SET logins = user_logins.logins + EXCLUDED.logins;

Solution 2:

Edit: in case you missed warren's answer, PG9.5 now has this natively; time to upgrade!

Building on Bill Karwin's answer, to spell out what a rule based approach would look like (transferring from another schema in the same DB, and with a multi-column primary key):

CREATE RULE "my_table_on_duplicate_ignore" AS ON INSERT TO "my_table"
  WHERE EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM my_table 
                WHERE (pk_col_1, pk_col_2)=(NEW.pk_col_1, NEW.pk_col_2))
  DO INSTEAD NOTHING;
INSERT INTO my_table SELECT * FROM another_schema.my_table WHERE some_cond;
DROP RULE "my_table_on_duplicate_ignore" ON "my_table";

Note: The rule applies to all INSERT operations until the rule is dropped, so not quite ad hoc.

Solution 3:

For those of you that have Postgres 9.5 or higher, the new ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING syntax should work:

INSERT INTO target_table (field_one, field_two, field_three ) 
SELECT field_one, field_two, field_three
FROM source_table
ON CONFLICT (field_one) DO NOTHING;

For those of us who have an earlier version, this right join will work instead:

INSERT INTO target_table (field_one, field_two, field_three )
SELECT source_table.field_one, source_table.field_two, source_table.field_three
FROM source_table 
LEFT JOIN target_table ON source_table.field_one = target_table.field_one
WHERE target_table.field_one IS NULL;