MySQL UNIQUE Declaration to Avoid Inserting Duplicate Values

Following is the declaration for a UNIQUE clause in MySQL −

create table yourTableName
(
   yourColumnName1 dataType,
   yourColumnName2 dataType,
   UNIQUE(yourColumnName1),
   UNIQUE(yourColumnName1)
);

Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable
(
   Value int,
   Value2 int,
   UNIQUE(Value),
   UNIQUE(Value2)
);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (13.98 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command. Here, duplicate records won’t insert because we have used UNIQUE above −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values(10,20) ;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.32 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(10,30);
ERROR 1062 (23000): Duplicate entry '10' for key 'Value'
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(40,20);
ERROR 1062 (23000): Duplicate entry '20' for key 'Value2'
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(60,70);
Query OK, 1 row affected (1.37 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+-------+--------+
| Value | Value2 |
+-------+--------+
|    10 |     20 |
|    60 |     70 |
+-------+--------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)