Oracle Equivalent to MySQL INSERT IGNORE?

Question

I need to update a query so that it checks that a duplicate entry does not exist before insertion. In MySQL I can just use INSERT IGNORE so that if a duplicate record is fo

Answer 1

I don't think there is but to save time you can attempt the insert and ignore the inevitable error:

begin

   insert into table_a( col1, col2, col3 )
   values ( 1, 2, 3 );

   exception when dup_val_on_index then 
      null;

end;
/

This will only ignore exceptions raised specifically by duplicate primary key or unique key constraints; everything else will be raised as normal.

If you don't want to do this then you have to select from the table first, which isn't really that efficient.