MySQL Insert row, on duplicate: add suffix and re-insert

Question

My question is rather complex, but I thought I should give it a try.

In short, I want to insert a row with a slug (short string with alphas and a dash:

Answer 1

You could create a trigger that changes the value of NEW.slug before inserting it.

drop trigger if exists changeSlug;

delimiter |

CREATE TRIGGER changeSlug BEFORE INSERT ON slugs
  FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
     declare original_slug varchar(255);
     declare slug_counter int;
     set original_slug = new.slug;
     set slug_counter = 1;
     while exists (select true from slugs where slug = new.slug) do
        set new.slug = concat(original_slug, '-', slug_counter); 
        set slug_counter = slug_counter + 1;
     end while;

  END;
|
delimiter ;

And this would be the results

mysql> insert into slugs values ("dude");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> insert into slugs values ("dude");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> insert into slugs values ("dude");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from slugs;
+--------+
| slug   |
+--------+
| dude   |
| dude-1 |
| dude-2 |
+--------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)