Thanks for the script. The reason I ran desc tableA@remote_db is to check why my package would not compile. Compilation times out and I figured out that it is because of the Delete statement (from the same table) over d/b link. So, my next test was to simply describe that table in remote d/b. It failed with ORA-00904. Regards, Eugene Pipko Seattle Pacific Industries office: 253.872.5243 cell: 206.304.7726 Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. -----Original Message----- From: Barbara Baker [mailto:barb.baker@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 8:59 AM To: Eugene Pipko Cc: oracle-l-freelists Subject: Re: ORA-00904 I think I vaguely remember this being a bug in 8.1 I don't remember who I stole this from, but you can pop it into sql and try the describe this way. (Kind of overkill for "describe", but it works) SET ECHO OFF accept table_name prompt "Enter the name of the Table :" set heading on set verify on set newpage 0 spool descr.lst btitle off column nline newline set pagesize 54 set linesize 132 set heading off set embedded off set verify off accept owner_nam char prompt 'Enter table owner: ' ---accept report_comment char prompt 'Enter a comment to identify system: ' select 'Date - '||to_char(sysdate,'Day Ddth Month YYYY HH24:MI:SS'), 'Username - '||USER nline from sys.dual / prompt set heading on set embedded off column cn format a25 heading "Column Name|Dflt Val" column fo format a25 heading 'Type' column nu format a8 heading 'Null' column nds format 99,999,999 heading 'No|Distinct' column dfl format 9999 heading 'Dflt|Len' column dfv format a22 heading 'Default|Value' ---column dfv format a10 heading '' newline ttitle 'Table Description - Column Definition' select COLUMN_NAME cn, DATA_TYPE || decode(DATA_TYPE, 'NUMBER', '('||to_char(DATA_PRECISION)|| decode(DATA_SCALE,0,'',','||to_char(DATA_SCALE))||')', 'VARCHAR2', '('||to_char(DATA_LENGTH)||')', 'DATE','', 'CHAR','', 'Error') fo, decode(NULLABLE,'Y','','NOT NULL') nu, NUM_DISTINCT nds, DEFAULT_LENGTH dfl, DATA_DEFAULT dfv FROM all_tab_columns where TABLE_NAME=UPPER('&&table_name') and owner=UPPER('&&owner_nam') order by COLUMN_ID / On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Eugene Pipko<eugene.pipko@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi all, > > I am getting following error: ORA-00904: "CHAR_LENGTH": invalid identifier > while trying to run: desc tableA@remote_db from 9.2.0.8 to 8.1.7.4 > > Everything I read so far suggests that one of the columns being Oracle > reserved word, but not sure what this error message refers to as every > column in destination table starts with “ST00_” > > > > Any suggestions? > > > > > > Regards, > > > > Eugene Pipko > > Seattle Pacific Industries > > office: 253.872.5243 > > cell: 206.304.7726 > > P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. > > ��i��0���zX���+��n��{�+i�^