insert contacts into database but does not want to duplicate already existing contact

Question

I am trying to insert contacts into database but does not want to duplicate already existing contact.

Not sure INSERT has WHERE CLAUSE.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You could use a stored procedure that checks if the record first exists before doing an insert. If the record exists, the stored procedure would do an update.

The advantage of using a stored procedure instead of a select followed by an update is you only hit the database server once instead of twice.