what's here with not in select ?

This test was produced on Oracle 7.3

Oracle7 Workgroup Server Release 7.3.2.3.1 - Production Release With the distributed option
PL/SQL Release 2.3.2.3.0 - Production

Here is a spool file of a test, but how can it happen ? Ia have a table, that doesn't have a column, that I reference in the not in (select....) section of a query. Oracle says, that no rows selected, but I think, that the correct answer is 'Invalid column name', I think

I was able to produce this BUG with every table and column name, the test names are not special.

create table people( name varchar2(40) ); Table created.
create table job( job_name Varchar2(40) ); Table created.

insert into people values('JOE');
1 row created.
insert into people values('NOT JOE');
1 row created.
insert into people values('THIS IS JOE'); 1 row created.

insert into job values('JOE IS NOT HERE'); 1 row created.
insert into job values('AND NO OTHER PEOPLE'); 1 row created.

select * from people where name not in (select name from job); no rows selected

/* this is the subquery itself */

select name from job;
select name from job

       *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00904: invalid column name

spool off

--
Valent Levente
lsoft_at_szabinet.hu