My *guess* is, the zip column is a character column having both number
and character values. Without hint, it looks like the query filters out
from bottom to top of the where condition. So first when zip = 43933
condition is searched, oracle tries to do a implicit conversion of the
column. While searching the column it finds some character value and
number values so throws that error.
Whereas when the hint is specified, it looks from top to bottom. The
resultant set of ssn like '835%' and birth_date = '31-OCT-03'; has
only numeric zip values. So oracle easily able to do implicit
conversion. Thus you got the result.
Thanks and Regards,
Satheesh Babu.S
Received on Thu May 12 2005 - 03:03:44 CDT
