Question on Decode Versus Case

DA Morgan gave me an example of a procedure in another thread (Unions With Grouping Group Values) in which he uses the decode function. In my reference book I'm using for my Oracle SQL, and now some of the PL/SQL I am learning on my own, the author stated "Oracle is planning to drop the DECODE function in future releases and to replace the function with the CASE statement...."

The book was written around Oracle 9i and published in 2003. Is this statement still true (if it ever was) or is it safe to use DECODE? I've been deliberately using CASE statements on my SQL statements because of the point made by the book. We're still on Oracle 8i, but will doubtless be progressing eventually to 10 and later versions.

Thanks in advance.

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Tim    http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
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