title: Missing Keyword (ORA-00905) - Oracle Case Statement
body: <p>I tried to write a case statement in a select statement. Since the height column comes as varchar2 and includes characters I need to eliminate the characters as follows :</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT FIRST_NAME,
      LAST_NAME,
      (CASE height
          WHEN height LIKE '%&gt;%' THEN -1
          WHEN height LIKE '%&lt;%' THEN -1
          ELSE TO_NUMBER (height)
              END) AS height
  FROM TEMP;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am getting this Missing keyword error. I am a newbie and would be nice if anyone could help me with this.</p>