-- THIS IS WRONG. DO NOT COPY IT. It's an EXAMPLE.

BEGIN;

UPDATE testtable
SET somedata = 'blah'
WHERE id = 2;

-- Remember, this is WRONG. Do NOT COPY IT.

INSERT INTO testtable (id, somedata)
SELECT 2, 'blah'
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM testtable WHERE testtable.id = 2);

COMMIT;

BEGIN;

CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE newvals(id integer, somedata text);

INSERT INTO newvals(id, somedata) VALUES (2, 'Joe'), (3, 'Alan');

LOCK TABLE testtable IN EXCLUSIVE MODE;

UPDATE testtable
SET somedata = newvals.somedata
FROM newvals
WHERE newvals.id = testtable.id;

INSERT INTO testtable
SELECT newvals.id, newvals.somedata
FROM newvals
LEFT OUTER JOIN testtable ON (testtable.id = newvals.id)
WHERE testtable.id IS NULL;

COMMIT;

do $$
begin 
  insert into testtable(id, somedata) values(2,'Joe');
exception when unique_violation then
  update testtable set somedata = 'Joe' where id = 2;
end $$;

from sqlalchemy.dialects.postgresql import insert

stmt = insert(my_table).values(user_email='a@b.com', data='inserted data')
stmt = stmt.on_conflict_do_update(
    index_elements=[my_table.c.user_email],
    index_where=my_table.c.user_email.like('%@gmail.com'),
    set_=dict(data=stmt.excluded.data)
    )
conn.execute(stmt)

WITH UPD AS (UPDATE TEST_TABLE SET SOME_DATA = 'Joe' WHERE ID = 2 
RETURNING ID),
INS AS (SELECT '2', 'Joe' WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM UPD))
INSERT INTO TEST_TABLE(ID, SOME_DATA) SELECT * FROM INS

import itertools as it

from functools import partial
from operator import itemgetter

from sqlalchemy.exc import IntegrityError
from app import session
from models import Posts

def chunk(content, chunksize=None):
    """Groups data into chunks each with (at most) `chunksize` items.
    https://stackoverflow.com/a/22919323/408556
    """
    if chunksize:
        i = iter(content)
        generator = (list(it.islice(i, chunksize)) for _ in it.count())
    else:
        generator = iter([content])

    return it.takewhile(bool, generator)

def gen_resources(records):
    """Yields a dictionary if the record's id already exists, a row object 
    otherwise.
    """
    ids = {item[0] for item in session.query(Posts.id)}

    for record in records:
        is_row = hasattr(record, 'to_dict')

        if is_row and record.id in ids:
            # It's a row but the id already exists, so we need to convert it 
            # to a dict that updates the existing record. Since it is duplicate,
            # also yield True
            yield record.to_dict(), True
        elif is_row:
            # It's a row and the id doesn't exist, so no conversion needed. 
            # Since it's not a duplicate, also yield False
            yield record, False
        elif record['id'] in ids:
            # It's a dict and the id already exists, so no conversion needed. 
            # Since it is duplicate, also yield True
            yield record, True
        else:
            # It's a dict and the id doesn't exist, so we need to convert it. 
            # Since it's not a duplicate, also yield False
            yield Posts(**record), False

def upsert(data, chunksize=None):
    for records in chunk(data, chunksize):
        resources = gen_resources(records)
        sorted_resources = sorted(resources, key=itemgetter(1))

        for dupe, group in it.groupby(sorted_resources, itemgetter(1)):
            items = [g[0] for g in group]

            if dupe:
                _upsert = partial(session.bulk_update_mappings, Posts)
            else:
                _upsert = session.add_all

            try:
                _upsert(items)
                session.commit()
            except IntegrityError:
                # A record was added or deleted after we checked, so retry
                # 
                # modify accordingly by adding additional exceptions, e.g.,
                # except (IntegrityError, ValidationError, ValueError)
                db.session.rollback()
                upsert(items)
            except Exception as e:
                # Some other error occurred so reduce chunksize to isolate the 
                # offending row(s)
                db.session.rollback()
                num_items = len(items)

                if num_items > 1:
                    upsert(items, num_items // 2)
                else:
                    print('Error adding record {}'.format(items[0]))

>>> data = [
...     {'id': 1, 'text': 'updated post1'}, 
...     {'id': 5, 'text': 'updated post5'}, 
...     {'id': 1000, 'text': 'new post1000'}]
... 
>>> upsert(data)