question

First problem is that the **substr(to_char(sysdate,'DAY'),1,3)** returns the first 3 letters of the day name spelled in upper case. This would not be an issue in SQL Server installed with default case insensitive collation, but this is a problem in Oracle because the string comparisons in Oracle are always case sensitive. This means that you should use, for example, **MON**, not **Mon** etc. To be safe it would be better to apply upper prior to calling substring. In order to understand the major problem with the statement in question, just deduce what happens if it is executed on, say, Friday. The statement then resolves to this one: select * from dual where (select * from _Fri) It is easy to see that there are 2 reasons why this statement is incorrect. First, it does not resolve to anything that can possibly execute, and second, it is not possible to have the table names in Oracle which begin with underscore unless such table name is quoted. This practice is ill advised, but sadly, it is possible, much like it is possible to come up with phony table names in SQL Server as well, provided that they are quoted with brackets. In SQL Server there would be 2 ways to address this problem: with static and dynamic script. In Oracle, I am afraid that the static method might not be possible, but the dynamic script is easy enough. Please try this: execute immediate 'select * from '|| case when upper(substr(to_char(sysdate,'DAY'), 1, 3)) = 'MON' then '"_Mon"' when upper(substr(to_char(sysdate,'DAY'), 1, 3)) = 'FRI' then '"_Fri"' else '"_Out"' end; Please note that the table names are quoted, this is the only way to query the tables with improper names. Hope this helps. Oleg