> The problem I try to solve is something along: a bunch of clients try to update a count, and ONE of them must initialize > the count if it does not exist... this can't be done with current infrastructure without race conditions.
The solution without merge but a unique key in other db's is: update if no rows updated insert if duplicate key update if no rows updated goto insert note, that the counter updates need to be of the form set x = x + ? where key=y do you see a potential race condition with this ? In pg you also need a savepoint before the insert for this to work. Depending on the ratio of insert vs update we also start with insert when the insert succeeds more that 50% (I would use a higher percentage with pg though): insert if duplicate key update if no rows updated goto insert Andreas ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly