Oracle / PLSQL: ORA-00927 Error Message

Learn the cause and how to resolve the ORA-00927 error message in Oracle.

Description

When you encounter an ORA-00927 error, the following error message will appear:

• ORA-00927: missing equal sign

Cause

You tried to execute a statement, but missed an equal sign. This can happen in either the SET clause of a UPDATE statement or in a search condition.

Resolution

The option(s) to resolve this Oracle error are:

Option #1

If this error occurred in the SET clause of an UPDATE statement, add the missing equal sign and re-execute the statement.

For example, if you tried to execute the following:

UPDATE suppliers
SET supplier_name 'IBM'
WHERE supplier_id = 1000;

You would receive the following error message:

You could correct this error by adding the missing equal sign, as follows:

UPDATE suppliers
SET supplier_name = 'IBM'
WHERE supplier_id = 1000;

Option #2

If this error occurred in a search condition when you are trying to determine a "not equals" condition, add the missing equal sign and re-execute the statement.

For example, if you tried to execute the following:

SELECT *
FROM suppliers
WHERE supplier_id ! 1000;

You would receive the following error message:

You could correct this error by adding the missing equal sign, as follows:

SELECT *
FROM suppliers
WHERE supplier_id != 1000;

This statement would return all suppliers whose supplier_id is not equal to 1000.