decoding rowids

[Rajesh Dayal]

Hi all,   I was just wondering if there is any alternative method of getting the numeric values of rowid other than dbms_rowid.   Other way, what is the algorithm for calculating numeric value of rowid's values. e.g.   SQL> SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR(ROWID,10,6) BLOCK# FROM PRASANTA.TPSV ; BLOCK# ------ AAAmQa   SQL> SELECT DBMS_ROWID.ROWID_BLOCK_NUMBER(ROWID) BLOCK FROM   2  PRASANTA.TPSV ;        BLOCK ----------     156698     Now, how can I relate AAAmQa  and 156698 ?? Was this package DBMS_ROWID existing on Oracle 7.x ??   Thanks for your inputs...   Cheers, Rajesh