XPost: comp.databases.oracle.misc   
   From: spare_brain@yahoo.com   
      
   Hi Folks,   
      
   I need to INSERT data into the table where the row may already be present.   
   Can MERGE help me out? I'm limited to using SQL only, and thew DB is Oracle   
   9.2.   
      
   The low-tech solution would be to issue a SELECT and do an update if the row   
   is present, and an INSERT if the row is absent. I thought MERGE can help you   
   out - but I'm not able to  do it. here's the merge statement I tried, which   
   seems to affect zero rows!   
      
   merge into employee s   
   using   
   (select * from employee where user_id = 'john123') st   
   ON (s.user_id = st.user_id)   
   when matched then   
       update set s.pay=50000   
   when not matched then   
       insert (s.user_id, s.pay, s.service_name, s.authorized_for) values   
       ('john123', 50000, 'foo', 'ALL')   
   /   
      
   Thanks   
   SB   
      
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