MySQL - ignore insert error: duplicate entry

You can use INSERT... IGNORE syntax if you want to take no action when there's a duplicate record.

You can use REPLACE INTO syntax if you want to overwrite an old record with a new one with the same key.

Or, you can use INSERT... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE syntax if you want to perform an update to the record instead when you encounter a duplicate.

Edit: Thought I'd add some examples.

Examples

Say you have a table named tbl with two columns, id and value. There is one entry, id=1 and value=1. If you run the following statements:

REPLACE INTO tbl VALUES(1,50);

You still have one record, with id=1 value=50. Note that the whole record was DELETED first however, and then re-inserted. Then:

INSERT IGNORE INTO tbl VALUES (1,10);

The operation executes successfully, but nothing is inserted. You still have id=1 and value=50. Finally:

INSERT INTO tbl VALUES (1,200) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE value=200;

You now have a single record with id=1 and value=200.

You can make sure that you do not insert duplicate information by using the EXISTS condition.

For example, if you had a table named clients with a primary key of client_id, you could use the following statement:

INSERT INTO clients(client_id, client_name, client_type)SELECT supplier_id, supplier_name, 'advertising'FROM suppliersWHERE not exists (select * from clientswhere clients.client_id = suppliers.supplier_id);

This statement inserts multiple records with a subselect.

If you wanted to insert a single record, you could use the following statement:

INSERT INTO clients(client_id, client_name, client_type)SELECT 10345, 'IBM', 'advertising'FROM dualWHERE not exists (select * from clientswhere clients.client_id = 10345);

The use of the dual table allows you to enter your values in a select statement, even though the values are not currently stored in a table.

from http://www.techonthenet.com/sql/insert.php

You can use triggers.

Also check this introduction guide to triggers.