If you have a primary key value (or OID?) then you can delete the duplicates in situ using something like (untested)

-- should work if never more than 1 duplicate row for colname1, colname2

delete from table where pk_value in (
select min(pk_value)
from table
group by colname1, colname2
having count(*) > 1
)

-- if you can have multiple duplicate rows for colname1, colname2
-- then you need something like

delete from table where pk_value not in (
select min(pk_value)
from table
group by colname1, colname2
having count(*) = 1
)

Hope that helps.

John

A. Kretschmer wrote:
am  Wed, dem 13.09.2006, um 15:46:58 -0700 mailte Junkone folgendes:
hI
i have a bad situation that i did not have primary key. so i have a
table like this
colname1                colname2
1                                 apple
1                                 apple
2                                  orange
2                                   orange

It is a very large table. how do i remove the duplctes quickly annd
without much change.

begin;
alter table foo rename to tmp;
create table foo as select distinct * from tmp;
commit;

You should create a primary key now to avoid duplicated entries...


HTH, Andreas

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