[dba-SQLServer] Is there a better way

I am updating a flag field which tells me that an address is valid.  The code currently consists of 
a series of about FIVE passes through the table doing things like:

Update MyTbl
SET AddrValid = 'ANK'
WHERE ANK_ IS NOT NULL

Update MyTbl
SET AddrValid = 'PO'
WHERE (AddrValid IS NULL) AND (Addr Like 'PO%')


Update MyTbl
SET AddrValid = 'MOV'
WHERE (AddrValid IS NULL) AND (Addr Like 'MOVED%')

Etc next code

Etc Next code

My objective is to have a moved flag that I can find all of my ANK records, or EXCLUDE the ANK and 
Moved etc.

Obviously I have a ton of processing going on here.  It has to do N passes through the table to find 
and create N different codes.  With tens of millions of records this is taking a large while.

Is there a faster way?  Drop the where and put the where processing into a UDF that figures out what 
the code should be.  So every record gets processed, and the UDF takes the fields in the where 
clause and decides what code to assign.

Something like that.  Would it be faster?  Given that we are by design visiting every row I would 
think it would be, though it might be a complex function to design.



-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com