Hi Michael. Yes there is an average function in Oracle, but the form of my SQL statement would take the form:

$sth = $dbh->prepare(qq{
  
  SELECT 
   avg(DECODE(cat1, -1,null,cat1)),
   .
   .
   .
   avg(DECODE(cat15, -1,null,cat15))
      FROM TABLE
      });
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The reason for this monster: well entries in columns can be '-1' (indicating the category was not applicable at entry time). So in order to get statistics, I have to change the -1's to nulls - that way Oracle doesn't include the nulls in the AVG calculations.... Regards, Stacy.