I got a call from a developer the other week complaining that a query in QA had started giving an ora-1722. It had worked fine for several months and the identical query was working fine in production. Select count(1) from prod.job_profile jp where step_id < 9999 and not exists (select 'x' from prod.job_log jl where jl.job_id = jp.job_id and ( jl.status in ('C', 'EI') ) and jl.batch_id in (select to_number(text_value) from prod.batch_parameter where name = 'BATCH_ID')); Investigating confirmed this, along with the fact that the query was comparing a string (jl.batch_id) with a number (to_number(text_value)). But why did it suddenly stop working and why did it still work in production? Comparing explain plans between QA and production I saw that they were different (statistics had changed during QA testing). The query that failed was using an index on jl.batch_id. Apparently Oracle automatically took care of converting the string to a number *unless* the number was being used to access an index on the varchar2 column. Interesting behavior. I can see why it might work that way but it's certainly not intuitive. Of course explaining this to the developer took quite a while. "It worked before, why shouldn't it work now? What's wrong with Oracle?" Oracle 184.108.40.206 Jay Miller Sr. Oracle DBA . ----------------------------------------- This message is confidential and sent by TD Waterhouse solely for use by the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. This should not be deemed as an offer or solicitation, to buy or sell any product. Any 3rd party information contained herein was prepared by sources deemed reliable, but is not guaranteed. TD Waterhouse does not accept electronic instructions that would require an original signature. Information received by or sent from TD Waterhouse is stored, subject to review, and may be produced to regulatory authorities or others with a legal right to such.