INSERT and UPDATE a record using cursors in oracle

Question

I have 2 tables- student and studLoad both having 2 fields studID and studName. I want to load data from student table into stuLoad table. If the data already exists in the studLoad table, then it should be updated else it should be inserted. following is my code to do so:

    create or replace procedure studentLoad is
v_id student.studID%type;
v_name student.studName%type;
v_sn studLoad.studName%type;
cursor cur_load is
select * from student;


begin
  open cur_load;
  loop
   fetch cur_load into v_id,v_name;

   exit when cur_load%notfound;
   select studName into v_sn from studLoad where studID = v_id;
   if(v_sn!= v_name) then
      update studLoad set studName= v_name where studID= v_id;
   else
      insert into studLoad values(v_id,v_name);
   dbms_output.put_line(v_id || ' ' || v_name);
   end if;
  end loop;
      close cur_load;
end;

It's not working. the rows in studLoad table are noT updated. How do I solve this? In SQL server we use IF EXISTS(select...from stuLoad..) to check if the record exists in the table, is there a way to do the same in Oracle? if yes then please let me know the same.

Answer 1

This is a highly inefficient way of doing it. You can use the merge statement and then there's no need for cursors, looping or (if you can do without) PL/SQL.

MERGE INTO studLoad l
USING ( SELECT studId, studName FROM student ) s
ON (l.studId = s.studId)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
  UPDATE SET l.studName = s.studName
   WHERE l.studName != s.studName
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN 
INSERT (l.studID, l.studName)
VALUES (s.studId, s.studName)

Make sure you commit, once completed, in order to be able to see this in the database.

---

To actually answer your question I would do it something like as follows. This has the benefit of doing most of the work in SQL and only updating based on the rowid, a unique address in the table.

It declares a type, which you place the data within in bulk, 10,000 rows at a time. Then processes these rows individually.

However, as I say this will not be as efficient as merge.

declare

   cursor c_data is
    select b.rowid as rid, a.studId, a.studName
      from student a
      left outer join studLoad b
        on a.studId = b.studId
       and a.studName <> b.studName
           ;

   type t__data is table of c_data%rowtype index by binary_integer;
   t_data t__data;

begin

   open c_data;
   loop
      fetch c_data bulk collect into t_data limit 10000;

      exit when t_data.count = 0;

      for idx in t_data.first .. t_data.last loop
         if t_data(idx).rid is null then
            insert into studLoad (studId, studName)
            values (t_data(idx).studId, t_data(idx).studName);
         else
            update studLoad
               set studName = t_data(idx).studName
             where rowid = t_data(idx).rid
                   ;
         end if;
      end loop;

   end loop;
   close c_data;

end;
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