How does using INSERT IGNORE INTO compare to manually checking for the existence of a record before inserting it in terms of speed and efficiency?

When inserting data into a database, using INSERT IGNORE INTO is more efficient than manually checking for the existence of a record before inserting it. This is because INSERT IGNORE INTO will simply skip the insertion if a duplicate key error occurs, whereas manually checking requires an additional query to determine if the record already exists. Therefore, using INSERT IGNORE INTO can save time and reduce the complexity of the code.

// Using INSERT IGNORE INTO to efficiently insert data into a database table
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test', 'username', 'password');
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT IGNORE INTO table_name (column1, column2) VALUES (:value1, :value2)");

$value1 = 'example_value1';
$value2 = 'example_value2';

$stmt->bindParam(':value1', $value1);
$stmt->bindParam(':value2', $value2);

$stmt->execute();