Question

I have a MERGE statement that’s giving me the dreaded ORA-00904: invalid identifier error message. Note that the typical issues with the “invalid identifier” error are not present here – I’m not trying to update the joined column, nor have I misspelled my column names. I am attempting to use the oracle pseudo-column ORA_ROWSCN in the USING clause’s SELECT statement.

With these sample tables, I try to run

MERGE INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE D
  USING
 (SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
         COALESCE (UPDATE_DT, CREATED_DT) update_dt,
         ORA_ROWSCN AS rowscn 
    FROM MY_SOURCE_TABLE) S
   ON (D.PRIMARY_KEY = S.PRIMARY_KEY)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
     UPDATE SET D.update_dt = GREATEST(D.update_dt, S.update_dt),
                D.rowscn = GREATEST(D.rowscn, S.rowscn)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
     INSERT (D.PRIMARY_KEY, D.UPDATE_DT, D.ROWSCN)
     VALUES (S.PRIMARY_KEY, S.UPDATE_DT, S.ROWSCN);

If I remove the pseudocolumn ora_rowscn from the USING clause, I no longer receive the error message, and the merge completes successfully.

MERGE INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE D
  USING
 (SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
         COALESCE (UPDATE_DT, CREATED_DT) update_dt
    FROM MY_SOURCE_TABLE) S
   ON (D.PRIMARY_KEY = S.PRIMARY_KEY)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
     UPDATE SET D.update_dt = GREATEST(D.update_dt, S.update_dt)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
     INSERT (D.PRIMARY_KEY, D.UPDATE_DT)
     VALUES (S.PRIMARY_KEY, S.UPDATE_DT);

If I instead place the query into a VIEW, I can then use the ora_rowscn successfully:

CREATE VIEW MY_VIEW AS 
    SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
         COALESCE (UPDATE_DT, CREATED_DT) update_dt,
         ORA_ROWSCN AS rowscn 
    FROM MY_SOURCE_TABLE;

MERGE INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE D
  USING (SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, UPDATE_DT, ROWSCN FROM MY_VIEW) S
   ON (D.PRIMARY_KEY = S.PRIMARY_KEY)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
     UPDATE SET D.update_dt = GREATEST(D.update_dt, S.update_dt),
                D.rowscn = GREATEST(D.rowscn, S.rowscn)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
     INSERT (D.PRIMARY_KEY, D.UPDATE_DT, D.ROWSCN)
     VALUES (S.PRIMARY_KEY, S.UPDATE_DT, S.ROWSCN);

Is there any way to do this without creating a VIEW for the query? I have to do this on many tables as part of an ETL process, and would prefer not to have to build several views.

EDIT:
Based on Glenn’s suggestion in the comments, I tried putting the query into a subquery:

MERGE INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE D
  USING
 (WITH QRY AS 
  (SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
         COALESCE (UPDATE_DT, CREATED_DT) update_dt,
         ORA_ROWSCN AS rowscn 
    FROM MY_SOURCE_TABLE)
  SELECT ORDER_ID, UPDATE_DT, ROWSCN FROM QRY)
 ON (D.PRIMARY_KEY = S.PRIMARY_KEY)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
     UPDATE SET D.update_dt = GREATEST(D.update_dt, S.update_dt),
                D.rowscn = GREATEST(D.rowscn, S.rowscn)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
     INSERT (D.PRIMARY_KEY, D.UPDATE_DT, D.ROWSCN)
     VALUES (S.PRIMARY_KEY, S.UPDATE_DT, S.ROWSCN);

This query still gives me the ORA-00904: invalid identifier error message.

Here’s DDL to recreate the issue.

CREATE TABLE MY_SOURCE_TABLE (
  PRIMARY_KEY NUMBER,
  CREATED_DT TIMESTAMP(6),
  UPDATED_DT TIMESTAMP(6)
);

CREATE TABLE MY_MERGE_TABLE (
  PRIMARY_KEY NUMBER,
  UPDATED_DT TIMESTAMP(6),
  ROWSCN NUMBER
);

INSERT INTO MY_SOURCE_TABLE (PRIMARY_KEY, CREATED_DT, UPDATED_DT)
VALUES (1, SYSDATE-2, SYSDATE);

INSERT INTO MY_SOURCE_TABLE (PRIMARY_KEY, CREATED_DT, UPDATED_DT)
VALUES (2, SYSDATE-1, NULL);

INSERT INTO MY_SOURCE_TABLE (PRIMARY_KEY, CREATED_DT, UPDATED_DT)
VALUES (3, SYSDATE-1, SYSDATE+1);

INSERT INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE (PRIMARY_KEY, UPDATED_DT, ROWSCN)
VALUES (1, SYSDATE-2, 0);

INSERT INTO MY_MERGE_TABLE (PRIMARY_KEY, UPDATED_DT, ROWSCN)
VALUES (2, SYSDATE-1, 0);

Answer 1

I ran your SQL and got the same error (on 11.2.0.1). Then I tried to run the select

SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
         COALESCE (UPDATE_DT, CREATED_DT) update_dt,
         ORA_ROWSCN AS rowscn 
    FROM MY_SOURCE_TABLE;

Still got the ORA-00904: "UPDATE_DT": invalid identifier error. Then I noticed that in your DDL, the column on MY_SOURCE_TABLE is called UPDATED_DT (i.e. with an extra D character). Changing the references to that in your MERGE statement made it work for me, hope that helps.