Ignore Duplicates on Insert???

I have a 3 million-row table that has a bunch of duplicates and no Primary Key. I need to insert all of the rows from that table into another table of identical structure with a Primary Key.

Here's the PL/SQL I am using:

        BEGIN
        INSERT INTO table1
        SELECT * FROM table2;
        EXCEPTION
        WHEN DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX THEN NULL;
        END;

My goal is to insert all unique rows as defined by the Primary Key and ignore duplicates, so that the insert continues when it hits a constraint violation.

I have tried to delete duplicates, but the key is four columns and a mere select takes hours.

Thanks to all in advance!

Stuart L. Cowen
Paladin Consulting

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own Received on Mon Dec 28 1998 - 14:32:29 CST