Generating unique values without triggers/sequences

Hello,

   (oracle 8.1.7) Due to the seemingly ridiculous restrictions I've put on this problem, it may not be possible to do this, but here goes:  I'm looking for a way (in an INSERT statement) to generate unique values for a column either of a numeric or VARCHAR type. If it was just numeric, this would be basically straightforward:

MAX(NUMERIC_FIELD) + 1 but writing a more generic version to accommodate VARCHAR is more complicated. I discovered "MAX" is supported on VARCHAR's, but sadly, "+ 1" is not, for obvious reasons.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Dave A. Received on Fri Jul 19 2002 - 16:24:59 CDT