How to calculate the maximum of two numbers in Oracle SQL select?

Question

This should be simple and shows my SQL ignorance:

SQL> select max(1,2) from dual; select max(1,2) from dual        * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00909: invalid number of arguments 

I know max is normally used for aggregates. What can I use here?

In the end, I want to use something like

select total/max(1,number_of_items) from xxx; 

where number_of_items is an integer and can be 0. I want to see total also in this case.

Answer 1

It looks like you're using Oracle so you can use the greatest function for this in place of max

select total/greatest(1,number_of_items)  from xxx;