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MERGE Statement
MERGE Statement
The MERGE statement inserts some rows and updates others in a single operation. The
decision about whether to update or insert into the target table is based upon a join
condition: rows already in the target table that match the join condition are updated;
otherwise, a row is inserted using values from a separate subquery.
For a full description and examples of the MERGE statement, see Oracle Database SQL
Reference.
Usage Notes
This statement is primarily useful in data warehousing situations where large amounts
of data are commonly inserted and updated. If you only need to insert or update a
single row, it is more efficient to do that with the regular PL/SQL techniques: try to
update the row, and do an insert instead if the update affects zero rows; or try to insert
the row, and do an update instead if the insert raises an exception because the table
already contains that primary key.
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