Bulk Collect with FORALL not working - Not enough values error

Question

Hi,
I am trying to copy data from one table to another which are having different number of columns. I am doing the following. But it threw not enough values error.
Table A has more than 10 millions of records. So I am using bulk collect instead of using insert into select from.
TABLE A (has more columns - like 25)
c1 Number
c2 number
c3 varchar2
c4 varchar2
c25 varchar2
TABLE B (has less columns - like 7)
c1 Number
c2 number
c3 varchar2
c4 varchar2
c5 number
c7 date
c10 varchar2
declare
TYPE c IS REF CURSOR;
v_c c;
v_Sql VARCHAR2(2000);
TYPE array is table of B%ROWTYPE;
l_data array;
begin
v_Sql := 'SELECT c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c7, c10 FROM A ORDER BY c1';
OPEN v_c FOR v_Sql;
LOOP
FETCH v_c BULK COLLECT INTO ldata LIMIT 100000;
FORALL i in 1 .. ldata.count
INSERT
INTO B
VALUES ldata(i);
END LOOP;
COMMIT;
exception
WHEN OTHERS THEN
ROLLBACK;
dbms_output.put_line('Exception Occurred' || SQLERRM);
END;
When I execute this, I am getting
PL/SQL: ORA-00947: not enough values
Any suggestions please. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Table A has more than 10 millions of records. So I am using bulk collect instead of using insert into select from.That doesn't make sense to me. An INSERT ... SELECT is going to be more efficient, more maintainable, easier to write, and easier to understand.
INSERT INTO b( c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c7, c10 )
  SELECT c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c7, c10
    FROM a;is going to be faster, use fewer resources, be far less error-prone, and have a far more obvious purpose when some maintenance programmer comes along than any PL/SQL block that does the same thing.
If you insist on using PL/SQL, what version of Oracle are you using? You should be able to do something like
DECLARE
  TYPE b_tbl IS TABLE OF b%rowtype;
  l_array b_tbl;
  CURSOR a_cursor
      IS SELECT c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c7, c10 FROM A;
BEGIN
  OPEN a_cursor;
  LOOP
    FETCH a_cursor
     BULK COLLECT INTO l_array
    LIMIT 10000;
    EXIT WHEN l_array.COUNT = 0;
    FORALL i IN l_array.FIRST .. l_array.LAST
      INSERT INTO b
        VALUES l_array(i);
  END LOOP;
  COMMIT;
END;That at least eliminates the infinite loop and the unnecessary dynamic SQL. If you're using older versions of Oracle (it's always helpful to post that information up front), the code may need to be a bit more complex.
Justin
Edited by: Justin Cave on Jan 19, 2011 5:46 PM