Existing record in php - php

Question

Whenever I add a new place/description in my UI, it will save automatically to my database. My problem is that I can still add a place eventhough it's already existing. All I want is that it won't save/update a new description/place if it's already exist.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
This is my my EditPlaces:
public function executeEditPlaces(sfWebRequest $request)
{
try{
$id = pg_escape_string(strip_tags($request->getParameter("id")));
// $id = $request->getParameter("id");
$query = "select description from country.regions where id = ('$id')";
// die($query);
$result=$this->conn->fetchAll($query);
if(count($result)>0){
$v = $result[0];
$data['data'] = array('description' => $this->formatString($v['description']));
}
$data['success']=true;
$data['msg']=$msg;
die(json_encode($data));
}
catch(exception $e)
{
$data['success']=false;
$data['msg']=$e->getMessage();
die(json_encode($data));
}
}
This is my UpdatePlaces:
public function executeUpdatePlaces(sfWebRequest $request)
{
try{
$by = $_SESSION['employee_id'];
$now = date("Y-m-d H:I:s");
$id = $request->getParameter("id");
$description = pg_escape_string(strip_tags($request->getParameter("description")));
$description = trim($description);
if(strlen($description) == 0)
{
die('cannot be empty');
}
else
{
$query = "update country.regions set description=('$description'),modified_by=('$by'),date_modified=('$now') where id=('$id')";
$msg = "Existing Region Successfully Updated.";
$this->conn->execute($query);
$data['success']=true;
$data['msg']=$msg;
die(json_encode($data));
}
}
catch(exception $e)
{
$data['success']=false;
$data['msg']=$e->getMessage();
die(json_encode($data));
}
}

Answer 1

There is two way:
You can alter your table so the column is unique
ALTER IGNORE TABLE country.regions ADD UNIQUE (description);
Check if your description/place already exist using a select
$query = "select description from country.regions";
$result=$this->conn->fetchAll($query);
if(count($result)>0){
print 'already exist'
} else {
//insert code
}

Answer 2

Please check if $description of duplicated entries are really the same.
You may introduce UNIQUE constraint to SQL schema for the columns that must be unique - it will introduce security in the lower layer.
Please check if description is of type bytea. If yes, pg_escape_bytea should be used instead of pg_escape_string.