RE: ORA-00922 on create table...

From: Jack C. Applewhite <japplewhite_at_inetprofit.com>
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 12:35:38 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.002C7A49.20010308123729@fatcity.com>

Pat,

I used to make many comma errors like that until I finally adopted a coding standard that has virtually eliminated them, as well as many others. The simple rule is "Vertical, Preferably Left, but Always Vertical", meaning all my SQL and PL/SQL is formatted so that nothing of importance ends up "ragged right".

For me, at least, it's so much easier to scan vertically and see a pattern anomaly - such as missing punctuation - than to scan left and right on the "ragged right". "Vertical Left" also helps keep all the ||s straight when I'm concatenating stuff.

I'd have formatted your Create Table statement like this, which allows my old eyes to much more easily see if I've left off a comma, paren or semicolon:

Create Table Catrec

( Abstract      VARCHAR2(3000)
, Add_Dt        VARCHAR2(32)
, Altti         VARCHAR2(200)
, Au            VARCHAR2(1504)
...
, Year          VARCHAR2(32)

)
;

Going a little farther with this standard has me using the following kinds of formatting:

Select t1.Col1             c1
     , t2.Another_Col2     c2
     , t2.Yet_Another_Col3 c3


>From   Table1              t1

     , Big_Old_Table2      t2
Where  t1.Col1          = 3
And    t2.The_Other_Col = t1.My_Col
And    t2.Col3          = 'NOPE'

;

Actually, this Select statement tries to do some "Vertical Right" and "Vertical Middle" formatting as well. Any "Verticalizing" helps!

If    <condition>
Then  <do something>
ElsIf <another condition>
Then  <do something else>
Else  <do the default thing>

End If
;

While <condition>
Loop
  <do stuff>
End Loop
;

I find this makes for easy-to-read, therefore easier-to-maintain, code. Anyway, I'll climb down off my soapbox now - I've evangelized enough.

Jack

---

Jack C. Applewhite
Database Administrator/Developer
OCP Oracle8 DBA
iNetProfit, Inc.
Austin, Texas
www.iNetProfit.com
japplewhite_at_inetprofit.com

-----Original Message-----
Gorden-Ozgul, Patricia E
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 10:48 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L I'll bet I'm doing something really stupid here. Can anyone find my error?

I'm getting the following error on execution: create table catrec (

                    *

ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00922: missing or invalid option

huh?

create table catrec (

        abstract        VARCHAR2(3000),
        add_dt          VARCHAR2(32),
        altti           VARCHAR2(200),
        au              VARCHAR2(1504),

...

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-- 
Author: Jack C. Applewhite
  INET: japplewhite_at_inetprofit.com

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Received on Thu Mar 08 2001 - 14:35:38 CST