Why Error Without Analyzing

[slimdave]

wtf is this?

SELECT to_number(b.ADDRESS)
FROM BUSINESS b
WHERE upper(b.ADDRESS) = lower(b.ADDRESS)

Is "address" a number or what?

Analyzing the table enabled the use of the cost-based optimizer instead of the RBO, and i expect that this "exposed" an error in converting address to a number that the RBO didn't see, because it scanned index instead of table, or something.