How to check if data is already in database using PHP? - php

Question

Situation:
My PHP script will run once a way.
and that will store data in my database.
Since 1 week is good enough for me, so I only want to keep just that.
Let's say if today is Friday OR 5 (in my case).
Is there a way to check if date == 5 is already exist in the database, and possibly override it with the one ?
If today is Friday/5, then all the old data with date == 5 should be overridden and store the new one instead.
Literally, I only want to store one full week worth of data.
Tomorrow, and the next will repeat the same logic.
Here is how I insert my data into my database :
$data = new Data;
$data->name = $name;
$data->description = $description;
$data->dayOfWeek = $today; // could be 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
$data->save();
I am not sure, how do I accomplish that in Laravel.
Any tip/suggestion will be much appreciated !

Answer 1

Why don't you do this outside of your foreach loop - before you insert
Data::where("dayOfWeek","=", $today )->delete();
That should take care of what you want, then you can continue insert just like normal:
$data = new Data;
$data->name = $name;
$data->description = $description;
$data->dayOfWeek = $today; // could be 0,1,2,3,4,5,6
$data->save();

Answer 2

You can use INSERT ... ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE eg. like that
INSERT INTO `data` (`name`, `description`, `day`) VALUES (:name, :description, :day)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE name = VALUES(name), description = VALUES(description)
Of course you have to declare unique key on day field to make it work.

Answer 3

If you specify ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE, and a row is inserted that would cause a duplicate value in a UNIQUE index or PRIMARY KEY, an UPDATE of the old row is performed. For example, if column a is declared as UNIQUE and contains the value 1, the following two statements have identical effect:
Sample Code:
INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (4,5,6)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=9;

Answer 4

Firstly get the data from the database;
$data = Data::where('dayOfWeek', $today)->first();
Then check to see if the data is there, if it is update if not create.
if (!is_null($data)){
$data->update($new_attribute_data)
}
else {
Data::create($new_attribute_data);
}
As a note: Using the update method can require you to fill the $fillable array within your model if you putting GET or POST data into it. You can do it like so;
class Data extends Eloquent {
...
protected $fillable = ['name','description','dayOfWeek'];
}
And Laravel will fill the Model Attribute with the corresponding data within the Input.
EDIT:
As a faster way for the above method, use the updateOrCreate method;
Data::updateOrCreate(['dayOfWeek' => $today], $new_attribute_data);
This will search for Data models with attributes that match the first parameters, and will update its other attributes with the second parameter. Ref