RE: Error ORA-00972

>> I don't think the alias is actually required

Correct.  But the longer you have your expression, the nicer an alias becomes just to keep your column size down... speaking from sqlpplus of course ;)

I haven't actually reviewed the sql fully, but I think Deb got the primary issue with the closing double quotes for that one column.  The error message would have arisen because the double quotes altered the parsing on the rest of the query.

As a side observation: Its good practice to have defaults on the decode though so the developer is in total control of what the value that emerges is.

Roger S.

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