Update a table using same variable name as the column

Question

I am not able to update a table column using a local variable which is having same name as the table column. Example of the function is as follows:
create or replace function trial return integer as
column1 integer:=99;
BEGIN
update firsttable set column1=column1 where column2='john';
return 0;
END;
Existing data in firsttable:
COLUMN1 COLUMN2
123 xyz
123 abcd
101 john

Answer 1

Unfortunately table aliasing won't help... Although specifying the procedure will. Somewhat academic I know, since if you can prefix the procedure name on the variable you can just as easily rename it, unless you happen to have a bunch of other code calling it using named notation possibly.
SQL> select ename, comm from emp where empno = 7934;
ENAME            COMM
MILLER
SQL> create or replace procedure new_comm
  2   (empno in number, comm in number)
  3  is
  4  begin
  5      update emp e
  6      set e.comm = new_comm.comm
  7      where e.empno = new_comm.empno;
  8      dbms_output.put_line('updated '||sql%rowcount||' rows!');
  9  end;
10  /
Procedure created.
SQL> exec new_comm (7934, 100)
updated 1 rows!
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> select ename, comm from emp where empno = 7934;
ENAME            COMM
MILLER            100Message was edited by:
3360
Colin beat me to it