Re: whenever sqlerror is an unknown statement?

My overall goal is to create a table iff it doesn't exist. After more poking around the docs, I've got this:

begin

   select * from all_tables where table_name = 'foo';    exception
   when no_data_found then
   begin

      create table foo(bar char(5));
   end;
end;

And SQL Workshop says:
 m
ORA-06550: line 6, column 4: PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "CREATE" when expecting one of the following: begin case declare exit for goto if loop mod null pragma raise return select update while with <an identifier> <a double-quoted delimited-identifier> <a bind variable> << close current delete fetch lock insert open rollback savepoint set sql execute commit forall merge pipe

Bah! Why can't I have a create, but I can have a select or update or anything else?

• John