Problem with Update Select in Stored procedure

Question

I am using Oracle 8. I'm writing a StoredProcedure and Oracle doesn't like the statement:
update
Leave_Coverages
set
Rate_Monthly = Rate_Monthly + (select Rate_Monthly from Leave_coverages where Leave_Coverage_ID = 10800)
where
Leave_Coverage_ID = 10799;
When I run the above statement from the command line - I have no problem. This statement in the stored procedure works:
update
Leave_Coverages
set
Rate_Monthly = Rate_Monthly + 4
where
Leave_Coverage_ID = 10799;
So essentially, I'm having trouble using a select in an update statement, but only in a Stored Procedure.

Answer 1

Denis,
This question was answered on this forum in the last week or so but I wasn't quickly able to locate this post.
Basically Oracle prior to version 9 had an SQL parser and a separate PL/SQL parser. The PL/SQL parser had to be updated each time new features were added to the SQL parser; often it lagged behind so that there were things you could do in plain SQL but weren't supported when using the same SQL in a cursor or directly in PL/SQL (with an INTO clause or RETURNING ... INTO clause).
From Oracle 9 these two parsers have been rolled into one so that new features introduced into SQL automatically also become available when used from PL/SQL.
So the answer to your curiousity on whether it will work in 9 or 10 is: if it works in SQL it should work just fine from PL/SQL.
Cheerio,
Colin