The fastest way to do this (given the option for exclusive access to the table) is a parallel nologging CTAS or PDML + insert /*+ append */. On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Roger Xu <wellmetus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > We need to shrink SSN to the last 4 digit. > update sales set ssn=to_number(substr(to_char(ssn),-4)); -- Regards, Greg Rahn http://structureddata.org -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l