UPSERT

reference

March 23, 2025

+ 12

UPSERT is used to insert a new record or update an existing one. If the document doesn’t exist it will be created. UPSERT is a combination of INSERT and UPDATE.

Please note that the examples on this page will alter the data in your sample buckets. To restore your sample data, remove and reinstall the travel-sample bucket. Refer to Sample Buckets for details.

Prerequisites

RBAC Privileges

User executing the UPSERT statement must have the Query Update and Query Insert privileges on the target keyspace. If the statement has any RETURNING clauses, then the Query Select privilege is also required on the keyspaces referred in the respective clauses. For more details about user roles, see Authorization.

A user with the Data Writer privilege may set documents to expire. When the document expires, the data service deletes the document, even though the user may not have the Query Delete privilege.

RBAC Examples

For this example, set the query context to the inventory scope in the travel sample dataset. For more information, see Query Context.

To execute the following statement, you must have the Query Update and Query Insert privileges on hotel.

sql++
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UPSERT INTO hotel (KEY, VALUE)
VALUES ("key1", { "type" : "hotel", "name" : "new hotel" });

To execute the following statement, you must have the Query Update and Query Insert privileges on hotel and the Query Select privilege on hotel also (for RETURNING clause).

sql++
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UPSERT INTO hotel (KEY, VALUE)
VALUES ("key1", { "type" : "hotel", "name" : "new hotel" })
RETURNING *;

Result

json
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[
  {
    "hotel": {
      "name": "new hotel",
      "type": "hotel"
    }
  }
]

To execute the following statement, you must have the Query Update and Query Insert privileges on landmark and Query Select privilege on `beer-sample`.

sql++
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UPSERT INTO landmark (KEY foo, VALUE bar)
SELECT META(doc).id AS foo, doc AS bar FROM `beer-sample` AS doc WHERE type = "brewery";

Syntax

ebnf
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upsert ::= 'UPSERT' 'INTO' target-keyspace ( insert-values | insert-select )
            returning-clause?

target-keyspace	Insert Target
insert-values	Insert Values
insert-select	Insert Select
returning-clause	RETURNING Clause

Insert Target

ebnf
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target-keyspace ::= keyspace-ref ( 'AS'? alias )?

Specifies the keyspace into which to upsert documents.

keyspace-ref	Keyspace Reference
alias	AS Alias

Keyspace Reference

ebnf
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keyspace-ref ::= keyspace-path | keyspace-partial

ebnf
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keyspace-path ::= ( namespace ':' )? bucket ( '.' scope '.' collection )?

ebnf
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keyspace-partial ::= collection

Keyspace reference for the insert target. For more details, refer to Keyspace Reference.

AS Alias

Assigns another name to the keyspace reference. For details, refer to AS Clause.

Assigning an alias to the keyspace reference is optional. If you assign an alias to the keyspace reference, the AS keyword may be omitted.

Insert Values

ebnf
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insert-values ::= ( '(' 'PRIMARY'? 'KEY' ',' 'VALUE' ( ',' 'OPTIONS' )? ')' )? values-clause

Specifies one or more documents to be upserted using the VALUES clause. For details, refer to Insert Values.

values-clause

VALUES Clause

ebnf
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values-clause ::= 'VALUES'  '(' key ',' value ( ',' options )? ')'
            ( ',' 'VALUES'? '(' key ',' value ( ',' options )? ')' )*

Specify the values as well-formed JSON. Also enables you to set the expiration of the upserted documents. For details, refer to VALUES Clause.

When updating a document, if the document expiration is not specified, the document expiration is set according to the request-level preserve_expiration parameter. If this is true, the existing document expiration is preserved; if false, the document expiration defaults to 0, meaning the document expiration is the same as the bucket expiration.

Insert Select

ebnf
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insert-select ::= '(' 'PRIMARY'? 'KEY' key ( ',' 'VALUE' value )?
                   ( ',' 'OPTIONS' options )? ')' select

Specifies the documents to be upserted as a SELECT statement. Also enables you to set the expiration of the upserted documents. For details, refer to Insert Select.

RETURNING Clause

ebnf
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returning-clause ::= 'RETURNING' (result-expr (',' result-expr)* |
                    ('RAW' | 'ELEMENT' | 'VALUE') expr)

Specifies the fields that must be returned as part of the results object.

result-expr

Result Expression

ebnf
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result-expr ::= ( path '.' )? '*' | expr ( 'AS'? alias )?

Specifies an expression on the data you upserted, to be returned as output. For details, refer to Result Expression.

Example

To try the examples in this section, set the query context to the inventory scope in the travel sample dataset. For more information, see Query Context.

The following statement upserts documents with type landmark-pub into the landmark keyspace.

Query

sql++
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UPSERT INTO landmark (KEY, VALUE)
VALUES ("upsert-1", { "name": "The Minster Inn", "type": "landmark-pub"}),
("upsert-2", {"name": "The Black Swan", "type": "landmark-pub"})
RETURNING VALUE name;

Result

json
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[
  "The Minster Inn",
  "The Black Swan"
]