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Software Engineering vocabulary · Databases and Persistence

Upsert

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈʌpsɜːrt/verbCommon term

In software engineering, upsert means: To insert a row if it does not exist yet, or update it if it already does, in a single operation. The word combines 'update' and 'insert'.

In Turkish: varsa güncelleyip yoksa eklemek, upsert etmek

How it is used

Also a noun: 'do an upsert'. Syntax differs: INSERT ... ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE in PostgreSQL and SQLite, INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE in MySQL, and MERGE in SQL Server and Oracle. It needs a unique key to decide whether the row exists.

Example sentences

  1. The sync job upserts products by SKU, so running it twice is safe.

  2. Use an upsert instead of checking first and then inserting; that check can race.

Common collocations

  • upsert a row
  • ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE
  • MERGE statement
  • upsert by key
  • INSERT statementThe SQL statement that adds one or more new rows to a table, using INSERT INTO followed by the column names and their values.
  • UPDATE statementThe SQL statement that changes values in rows that already exist, usually limited by a WHERE clause so that only the right rows are changed.
  • unique constraintA rule that stops two rows from having the same value in a column or combination of columns, for example two users with the same email address.
  • DMLData manipulation language: the SQL statements that work with the data inside tables, mainly INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and often SELECT.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Databases and Persistence

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