Append data to table1 from data in table 2 if conditiona are met

Question

I need to append text from one table to another if the field in not empty and only for spacific file numbers.
This is what I have so far but I'm missing something.....
SQL> update apprj a
2 set a.comment = a.comment || 'Part of the file is in'|| b.deadbox
3 where a.apno in ('1a',
4 '1b',
5 '1c')
6 and
7 a.apkey in
8 (select b.apkey
9 from sub b
10 where b.deadbox is not null)
11 ;
set a.comment = a.comment || 'Part of the file is in'|| b.deadbox
ERROR at line 2:
ORA-01747: invalid user.table.column, table.column, or column specification
Any ideas? Thanks as always

Answer 1

What version of oracle are you using? What version of sqlplus? The error is coming from sqlplus, so it is possible you have a really old version of sqlplus. If your version of sqlplus matches your database version, then you also have a really old version of Oracle. As I recall, the merge command was introduced in 9i.
If you are using something earlier, then you may need to use something like:
update apprj a
set a.comment = a.comment || (select 'Part of the file is in'|| b.deadbox
                              from sub b
                              where a.apkey = b.apkey and
                                    b.deadbox is not null)
where a.apno in ('1a', '1b', '1c') and
      exists (select 1 from sub b
              where a.apkey = b.apkey and
                    b.deadbox is not null)or if sub.apkey is declared unique (or can be declared unique), then:
update (select a.apkey, a.comment, b.deadbox
        from apprj a, sub b
        where a.apkey = b.apkey and
              b.deadbox is not null and
              a.apno in ('1a', '1b', '1c'))
set commment = comment||'Part of the file is in'||b.deadbox;Note that prior to 10G, the merge statement requires both a when matched and a when not matched clause.
John