Alter system archive log current

Question

Hi everyone,
I write code to alter system archive log current in PL/SQL as following:
declare
start_sequence number;
end_sequence number;
begin
--- get start sequence# ---
select SEQUENCE# into start_sequence from v_$log where status='CURRENT';
--- get end sequence# ---
alter system archive log current;
select SEQUENCE# into end_sequence from v_$log where status='CURRENT';
end;
When I run it, I got the following error:
alter system archive log current;
ERROR at line 11:
ORA-06550: line 11, column 6:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "ALTER" when expecting one of the following:
begin case declare end exception 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
What does it mean? How can I fix it/
Thanks!

Answer 1

That is because you are trying to issue a DDL call in PL/SQL. The only way you can achieve this is to use DYNAMIC SQL.
If you change your ALTER statement to:
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG CURRENT';It should work.
HTH!