Re: UPSERT wiki page, and SQL MERGE syntax

On 10/02/2014 07:52 AM, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> Having been surprisingly successful at advancing our understanding of
> arguments for and against various approaches to "value locking", I
> decided to try the same thing out elsewhere. I have created a
> general-purpose UPSERT wiki page.
> 
> The page is: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/UPSERT

Thanks. That'll help keep things moving forward rather than around in
circles.

> In general, add to this page, and edit it as you see fit. It'll be
> useful to centralize the references, discussion and state of the patch
> in one agreed upon place, as the patch continues to evolve.

I added a summary of the status quo of upsert in Pg as it stands, and a
brief discussion of the state in other RDBMSes.

I'd love it if someone who knows MySQL better could add info on MySQL's
ON DUPLICATE KEY feature - advantages/problems, etc.


I've added a few points to the goals section:

- Any new upsert approach must be a usability improvement on the status
quo; we don't want to introduce subtle behaviour or unnecessary foot-guns.

- if possible, upsert of multiple values is desirable. We currently have
to loop on a per-value basis.


... and some miscellaneous edits/formatting changes.

I've also added sections for the other options:

* A custom syntax
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/UPSERT#Custom_syntax

and

* Adopting an existing non-standard syntax
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/UPSERT#Adopting_an_existing_non-standard_syntax

which I'd appreciate it if you could fill out based on your existing
research and notes. I don't think it makes sense for me to write those
when you've already done the required study/note taking and just need to
transfer it over.


-- Craig Ringer                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services