Sybase vs Oracle: Temp Tables

        My first question about differences between Sybase and Oracle in terms of bcp vs SQL*Loader got such a great response, that I'm going to try with a second question.

        In Sybase, I'm used to creating temporary tables on the fly without having to run the 'create table' command, by using the following syntax:

	select ...
	into #TMP_TABLE
	from ...
	where ...

This doesn't work in Oracle (as far as I know). In fact, the 'SELECT ... INTO' syntax appears to be used for some sort of single row loading of data into variables that I haven't fully explored yet.

So, I'm left with a two-part question:

1. Does Oracle allow one to create a table as the result of a select statement without having used the 'create table' command?
2. If so, does Oracle automatically clean up this dynamically created table at the end of the session, like Sybase does?

Thank you in advance for any responses!

Andy

--

Andrew D. Arenson            | http://gc.bcm.tmc.edu:8088/cgi-bin/andy/andy

Baylor College of Medicine   | arenson_at_bcm.tmc.edu        (713)  H 520-7392
Genome Sequencing Center, Molecular & Human Genetics Dept.     | W 798-4689
One Baylor Plaza, Room S903, Houston, TX 77030                 | F 798-5386