Unfortunately Sequence numbers along with a couple of other 'features' often appear in 'My First Oracle System' I was thinking of varchar2 - If you want to see your data again don't put it in there! :-) I don't really see why the manual doesn't say next to sequences numbers that contiguous numbers cannot be guaranteed to prevent this error. I don't think this would do Oracle's Reputation any harm, in fact warning of 'silly' assumptions would be a good thing. (I'm sure it says it somewhere but it should be prominent.) -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l