Please Help on Decode statement

I am a new PL/Sql Programmer (Oracle 7.3)

I am trying to use decode as following but it does not work; I trying to avoid using a complex 'if then else' statement by the use of decode:

v_new_value:=decode(v_name,'one',1,'two',2,'0')

the error message I get is : you must use decode within sql.

If I use decode with a select then it works eg:

select decode(v_name,'one'1,'two,2) from table

help me please

Cheers. Received on Tue Nov 11 1997 - 00:00:00 CST