Ive got everything connecting and working correctly with my java app intereacting with my database, but i now have a weird syntax issue with my sql statement generated by my frontend application. Say I have the following tables: TABLE1 ======= 1Col1 1Col2 1Col3 TABLE2 ======= 2Col1 2Col2 2Col3 TABLE3 ======= 3Col1 3Col2 3Col3 TABLE4 ======= 4Col1 4Col2 4Col3 Now lets say I use the following select statement: SELECT 1Col1, ..., 4Col3 FROM DB.TABLE1, DB.TABLE2, DB.TABLE3, DB.TABLE4 WHERE 1Col1 <> 'someVal' AND ... OR 4Col3 <> 'someVal' *... = random columns in between Now I get the following error: java.sql.SQLException: ORA-00918: column ambiguously defined This doesnt happen when I select columns from 2 or less tables. Its when I get into selecting a large number of columns from different tables that it has issues. Are they supposed to be kept in a specific order or something?

I haven't actually used oracle before, but are you sure you can select the columns of all of those tables without joining them? Are you doing 4 different queries by any chance?

What happens when you making smaller queries?
Heck, why *do* you have such a massively huge query of crossproducts?!? Use the JOIN command!!!

No its all one query. What are joins? err ill look it up. thanks for the suggestion.