sqlplus question

I have win2k
Oracle 8i (8.1.7.3)

I'm trying to conditionally execute a command in sqlplus based on what the user entered in the table.

I tried to resolved that with substitution variable like this

COL cal NEW_VALUE cal;

SELECT DECODE(field_entered,'ANAYLSE',' ','rem') cal FROM parm_entered;

&cal ANALYZ TABLE ......;

this does not work because I think that sqlplus is expecting a command at the begining of a line

I know I could do the conditional execution of the command by putting the analyze command into a file
and calling that file with the substitution variable like before and it would work because the line would
begin with @ BUT i do not like the idea of creating a file for one line of code and was wondering
if it was possible to trick it to work . I also try to do it through PL/SQL but it did not like the ANALYZE
command(and the exact same command worked direcly in sqlplus)  so I supposed it is not a command that can be run through PL/SQL.

I hope, I'm not asking something obvious but I did not find my answer in the documentation

Thanks in advance Received on Wed Aug 28 2002 - 23:16:49 CDT