All, Trying to ... select col1 ,col2 "I have a very long column name here" from tab; ... and I'm getting ORA-00972. The query is passed into a reporting subsystem which outputs to Excel and automagically emails the report to a vendor. They really want the long name. I think I already know the answer, but does anyone know of a way to force/fake/beat into submission the Oracle parser? Thanks, Jon Knight __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l