Operator Precedence in PL/SQL

This was tested on Oracle 11.2. Many platforms give unary plus and minus a higher priority than exponentiation but PL/SQL does not:

SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON

SQL> DECLARE

  2   A NUMBER := -2**2;

  3  BEGIN

  4   DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('A = '||A);

  5  END;

  6  /

A = -4

 

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

SQL>

 

If you do not like this, you can change it with parentheses:

 

SQL> DECLARE

  2   B NUMBER := (-2)**2;

  3  BEGIN

  4   DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('B = '||B);

  5  END;

  6  /

B = 4

 

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

 

SQL>