Question

We just migrated from Oracle 8i to Oracle 11g. In doing so we ran into a problem we have a variable called current_time. we use it as both a variable in various procedures and functions ans as well as column names in several tables. The references to the term ‘CURRENT_DATE) looks to be in the neighborhood of a few thousand in our procview. When we upgraded, suddenly any time we were referring to the term current_date the new function was overriding the variables and column names. My question is how can we disable the reference to the oracle defined function?

Answer 1

You need to qualify the column name. Otherwise, Oracle’s scope resolution rules will choose the function over the column

SQL> create table foo( current_date date );

Table created.

SQL> insert into foo values( date '2011-01-01' );

1 row created.

SQL> select current_date from foo;

CURRENT_D
---------
07-FEB-12

SQL> select f.current_date from foo f;

CURRENT_D
---------
01-JAN-11