INSERT VALUES WHERE NOT EXISTS

Question

OK so I\'m trying to improve my asp data entry page to ensure that the entry going into my data table is unique.

So in this table I have SoftwareName and SoftwareTyp

Answer 1

You could do this using an IF statement:

IF NOT EXISTS 
    (   SELECT  1
        FROM    tblSoftwareTitles 
        WHERE   Softwarename = @SoftwareName 
        AND     SoftwareSystemType = @Softwaretype
    )
    BEGIN
        INSERT tblSoftwareTitles (SoftwareName, SoftwareSystemType) 
        VALUES (@SoftwareName, @SoftwareType) 
    END;

You could do it without IF using SELECT

INSERT  tblSoftwareTitles (SoftwareName, SoftwareSystemType) 
SELECT  @SoftwareName,@SoftwareType
WHERE   NOT EXISTS 
        (   SELECT  1
            FROM    tblSoftwareTitles 
            WHERE   Softwarename = @SoftwareName 
            AND     SoftwareSystemType = @Softwaretype
        );

Both methods are susceptible to a race condition, so while I would still use one of the above to insert, but you can safeguard duplicate inserts with a unique constraint:

CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX UQ_tblSoftwareTitles_Softwarename_SoftwareSystemType
    ON tblSoftwareTitles (SoftwareName, SoftwareSystemType);

Example on SQL-Fiddle

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ADDENDUM

In SQL Server 2008 or later you can use MERGE with HOLDLOCK to remove the chance of a race condition (which is still not a substitute for a unique constraint).

MERGE tblSoftwareTitles WITH (HOLDLOCK) AS t
USING (VALUES (@SoftwareName, @SoftwareType)) AS s (SoftwareName, SoftwareSystemType) 
    ON s.Softwarename = t.SoftwareName 
    AND s.SoftwareSystemType = t.SoftwareSystemType
WHEN NOT MATCHED BY TARGET THEN 
    INSERT (SoftwareName, SoftwareSystemType) 
    VALUES (s.SoftwareName, s.SoftwareSystemType);

Example of Merge on SQL Fiddle