RE: Magic Table

"Tony Andrews" <[email protected]> Sun, 19 Jan 2003 08:24:35
Newsgroups gmane.comp.db.oracle.devel
Message-ID <LYRIS-1796914-839036-2003.01.19-08.10.58--gcdod-oracle#[email protected]>
> Dual is not a table, it is an imaginary object, it does not exist, The key
word Dual is just used in place of a table.

Actually, it IS a real table, owned by SYS.  One way to really screw up
Oracle is to log in as SYS and insert another row into DUAL.  There is
nothing really "magic" about DUAL, it is simply a table that is
"guaranteed" to have exactly one row.  Any select that you can do with DUAL
you could just as well do with your own 1-row table (e.g. SELECT SYSDATE
FROM my_one_row_table).
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