column formating

hi,
I am trying to do some column formating for the following table (egs emp)
I have a script as

begin
col empid a(4);
col empname a(30);
col deptno 9999;
end;

i am getting the following err
ERROR at line 2:
ORA-06550: line 2, column 5:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "empid" when expecting one of the
following:
:= . ( @ % ;

Can I use this script for column formating ,when ever I need it
or exclucively set it?

Please advise
Badrinath

Hi,

I don't think you can give these statements inside begin & end. You can simply try without begin & end. Even then, you need to specify

col empid format a4;
col empname format a30;
......

Thanks
Padma