Q: col widths in sql in ora 9

[Quoted] [Quoted] I wish to control the colum widths of data in numerous utilitiy queries I [Quoted] often run while examining various databases.

In the past I simply used substr to limit the width.

For example

	select
	    substr( DB_LINK,1,30)  DB_LINK


	    ,substr( USERNAME,1,30) USERNAME

	    ,substr( PASSWORD,1,30) PASSWORD


	    ,substr( HOST,1,30)     HOST


	from user_db_links ;

This produces an output of about 120 chars wide -- except when I connect to one specific server which prints headers that are apparently the full width of the column instead of the width of the selected data. The only difference I can see is that the server is version 9 whereas all the other servers are version 8 (or less, but I no longer access any thing less than 8).

I type "column" and various defaults are displayed, but I see no difference based on which server I am connected to.

I certainly don't wish to have to define individual columm headers for all these queries. In addition to having to change a bunch of scripts, it also means that each script will then potentially be altering the settings used by other queries.

Is there some global technique to fix this apparent incompatibility?

define shows

DEFINE _SQLPLUS_RELEASE = "800060000" (CHAR) DEFINE _O_VERSION = "Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.2.0 - Production Received on Thu Nov 13 2003 - 20:42:10 CET