Active Record Insert Duplicate

[eluser]Armchair Samurai[/eluser]
I'd ignore AR in this case and do something like this:

Code:

$sql = "INSERT INTO table_name (foo, bar)
        VALUES (?, ?)
        ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE foo = foo";
$this->db->query($sql, array($var1, $var2));

return $this->db->affected_rows() == 1 ? TRUE : FALSE;

and handle the error in the controller if it returns FALSE.