title: Using the Continuation character in a DEFINE statement in Oracle SQL Developer
body: <p>I have the following code in which I'm using a variable to pass a list of values to multiple SQL statements (I can't save in a table as I don't have authority and don't want to have to maintain the list in all of the various SQL sections).</p>
  
  <p>It works fine as long as all of the values are on a single line... but as I have so many values; I'd like to split it into multiple lines and use the Continuation Character '-'.</p>
  
  <p>I'm running <code>Oracle SQL Developer 2.1.1.64</code> against <code>Oracle 10g</code> (I also tried this in <code>PL/SQL Developer</code> and it failed there as well)</p>
  
  <pre><code>--=========================================
  
     define subclasses = ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20', -
  
      '10-1010-25','10-1010-30')   --- there are another 60 values...
  
  
      select item from item_master where ((subclass) in &amp;&amp;subclasses);
  
      Select Price from Item_prices where ((subclass) in &amp;&amp;subclasses);
  
  --=========================================
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get the following error </p>
  
  <pre><code>ORA-01722: invalid number
  01722. 00000 -  "invalid number"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>as it is parsing the code as </p>
  
  <pre><code>select item from item_master where ((subclass) in ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15',
  '10-1010-20', -'10-1010-25','10-1010-30'))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...keeping the continuation code '-' in the SQL....tho it DOES go to the 2nd line of values.</p>
  
  <p>If I remove the '-' ...  it only processes the values on the first line and parses as </p>
  
  <pre><code>select item from item_master where ((subclass) in ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20', )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>... losing the second to nth line of values (and throwing errors as it ends w/ ',' and doesn't have the final ')'). How do I fix this?</p>