Help w/large deletes on fragmented table...

hi, i posted on this a while ago, and got some good response, but am back again to a similar problem. i have a tmp table built with two columns that identify which rows in certain tables i need to delete. this tmp table typically has about 400,000 rows, and on the larger tables, that is a one to one match, i.e. there will be 400,000 deltes from these tables. in response to an answer to my last post, i'm using rowids for all the other tables involved in the purge process, but that is obviously out the window for my fragmented table. i'm trying a number of strategies, similar to the following: delete from table where exists ( select * from tmp_table where table.col1 = tmp_table.col1 and table.col2 = tmp_table.col2) this is *very* slow. delete from table where col1 || col2 = (select col1 || col2 from tmp_table) i'm testing this now, but earlier indications were that this would also be slow. another method we are trying is to use a cursor on the tmp table and then walk through the deletes, one by one, but this is painfully slow. declare cursor tmp_curs for select * from tmp_table while(..) fetch tmp_curs into val1, val2 delete from table where col1 = val1 and col2 = val2 end there has to be a way to speed up these deletes, i just haven't found it yet. can anyone lend a hand??? thanks. mickm -- _____________________________________________________________________________ Mickey Mestel mickm@netcom.com -on a beach in thailand to a beautiful, stoned, norwegian woman: "..yeah, it's just another foreign country without ice." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------