Oracle table SAMPLE no longer updates

Question

A few years ago, my Oracle table called SAMPLE stopped accepting update or insert commands. I finally found that if I renamed the table all would work, so it appears SAMPLE may be a protected word, yet I don't see it on the Oracle reserved or protected word lists. Any light on this would be appreciated.

Answer 1

We can see all the keywords for our version of Oracle by querying the v$reserved_words view:

SQL> select * from v$reserved_words rw
  2  where rw.keyword = 'SAMPLE'
  3  /

KEYWORD                            LENGTH R R R R D
------------------------------ ---------- - - - - -
SAMPLE                                  6 N N N N N

SQL> 

This tells us that 'SAMPLE' is a keyword but not reserved in any context. So we are allowed to create objects called SAMPLE. Find out more.