I copied and pasted it from the source site into a ms-windows sqlplus executed it and came up with: DECLARE begin_time TIMESTAMP :=3D TO_TIMESTAMP('18-Sep-2002 07:35:00PM','dd-Mon-yyyy hh:mi:ssPM'); end_time TIMESTAMP :=3D TO_TIMESTAMP ('18-Sep-2002 07:35:30PM','dd-Mon-yyyy hh:mi:ssPM'); difference INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND; BEGIN difference :=3D end_time =D0 begin_time; DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(difference); END; ORA-06550: line 9, column 28: PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "=D0" when expecting one of the = following: . ( * @ % & =3D - + ; < / > at in is mod not rem <an exponent (**)> <> or !=3D or ~=3D >=3D <=3D <> and or like between || The symbol ". was inserted before "=D0" to continue. My guess is that somewhere BETWEEN writing and publishing the article = the BETWEEN keyword got replaced by =D0. Probably some fancy xml processing = in there.=20 Kind regards, Eric. -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx = [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Namens Ruth Gramolini Verzonden: donderdag 20 januari 2005 17:21 Aan: oracle-l Onderwerp: FW: Funny oracle character... Good morning all, One of my developers asked me to find out what the strange symbol I have = put in bold in this line is:days_in_2000 :=3D begin_2001 =D0 begin_2000; He had seen it several times in the documentation. I can't reproduce it = to do a search. Anyone know about this? Thanks in advance, Ruth -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Peterson [mailto:speterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 4:14 PM To: Ruth Gramolini Subject: Funny oracle character... http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/02-nov/o62sql_online.html Using Intervals Intervals can be used for many things, but in this article I'm going to focus on datetime arithmetic. If you think about it, intervals are = really nothing new. Consider the following code, which computes the difference between two dates in order to come up with the number of days in the = year 2000: DECLARE begin_2000 DATE :=3D TO_DATE('1-Jan-2000','dd-Mon-yyyy'); begin_2001 DATE :=3D TO_DATE('1-Jan-2001','dd-Mon-yyyy'); days_in_2000 NUMBER; BEGIN days_in_2000 :=3D begin_2001 =D0 begin_2000; END; / Stephen C. Peterson System Developer II Vermont Department of Taxes 109 State St Montpelier VT, 05602 W: 802-828-3747 E: speterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l