Hi Friends, I am having a very fundamental doubt, what is the order of retrival of the clauses when all are inclueded in the select stament like. Where Group by having order by. eg : select deptno,max(sal) from emp where job like 'SAL%' group by deptno having max(sal)>1000 order by deptno Regards, Srinivas -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l