Could have done but coming from a mysql background (i.e. where replace statement is supported), just crafting a simple replace rule was easier/faster to grok an

Could have done but coming from a mysql background (i.e. where replace statement is supported), just crafting a simple replace rule was easier/faster to grok and implement. Also helped that the table schema was very unlikely to change much in the future - so we didn't have to worry too much about remembering to keep the rule up to date (and the fact the id column was defined as VARCHAR NOT NULL and had no default assigned to it).