>What about simply renaming a column?
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>>Basically what I am saying here is:
>>1) Certain data types (integer, any type field with null) are impossible to create directly in a select statement.
>>2)But you can create a cursor on the fly that contains a field of the right type. Do a join onto this cursor and you get get fields of the type you could otherwise select.


You would have to change the data type as well. The join is faster .