Most efficient large update?

I'm trying to figure out the most efficient method of populating a field from one table to another. I've got to update about 100 million records, drawing from about 20 million.

From_table:

key - char(10)
from_data - char(10)

To_table:
key - char(10)
about 100 fields.
to_data - char(10)
50 more fields.

Goal is to populate the to_data
with the from_data, by 'key'.

I figure my best case would be a
pl/sql loop, select bulk gathering
100,000 records at a time. For each
of these loops, doing a bulk update
of the target table, committing in
batches of 100,000 records.

I'm blathering based on wandering though some Oracle books, being a complete newbie to pl/sql.

Would anybody be able to point me to an example of this type code?

Thanks.

If possible, please email and I'll summarize.

Barry

broom-nospam_at_voicenet.com Received on Sat May 26 2001 - 13:25:18 CDT